Hot on the heels of our annual Dream Machine—arguably the best hand-built rig that money can buy—two of our editors face a far more difficult undertaking: building a desktop system where money is an object and sacrifice is the name of the game.
Our intrepid staffers—Senior Editor Gordon Mah Ung and Associate Editor David Murphy—must navigate these unfamiliar waters with just $500 apiece. Let loose in a local electronics store, they’ll be given just 90 minutes to choose all the parts they need (other than tools) to build their respective budget boxes. We’re graciously allowing them to transfer a Windows XP license from a retired machine, so they can save some dough on the OS.

Assuming they survive the purchasing phase of the challenge, the editors will have a single afternoon in which to build their PCs, load the OS, and ensure their rigs’ stability. Then it’s on to the final phase: Each editor must benchmark and review his competitor’s finished product.

There are so many opportunities for mishaps and mayhem that we can barely stand the suspense. Let’s get started!

The 90-Minute Shopping Spree

Neither editor expected to use the full time allotted to them, but the vast selection of parts had both guys mentally mixing and matching possible configs, recalculating their price lists, and waiting on pokey sales clerks until the very last minutes.

Gordon's Purchases

Graphics: With just three minutes left to grab a GPU and get to the checkout line, Gordon reached for a rock-bottom GeForce card, which actually offers DirectX 10 capability! His big worry is that DX10 support is nothing more than a checkbox feature, due to the budget card’s low clock speeds.

CPU: Intel’s budget Allendale CPU core features 2MB of L2 cache and an 800MHz front-side bus (down from the Conroe’s 1,066MHz FSB). But it still rocks the Celeron D’s world.

Power Supply: Gordon immediately thought, “Let’s hope we don’t have a burnout,” when he considered running this bargain-bin system on the free 380-watt power supply that Raidmax includes with its case. But, hey, at least Gordon thought to buy a case....

Dave's Purchases

CPU: Dave chose the Core 2 Duo E4300 because of its reputation as an insane overclocker. He planned to take the proc to 3GHz and possibly beyond. That’s a far cry from its stock speed of 1.8GHz, and the reason he splurged on an aftermarket cooler. “I’m going to try and crank this baby,” says young Murphy.

Motherboard: Dual core, Core 2 Duo, what’s the diff? That’s what Dave thought when he picked up an ECS RC410L/800-M motherboard on his first trip to the store. That mobo supports an Intel dual-core chipset compatible with the Pentium D, not the Core 2 Duo he bought. “I’d like to blame the speed of purchasing and the English language for this screwup,” he says; “Dual core means two cores, regardless of the CPU generation.” His motherboard begged to differ.

Case: What, no case? In a frantic effort to save money and impress Maximum PC readers with his mad scissor skills, Dave chose to do without a standard computer case. Since the rules require the PCs to be both functional and moveable, his mad scheme is to fashion an enclosure out of the very cardboard boxes that contain his purchases. Utter brilliance? Pointless stupidity? A complete waste of packing tape? We’ll soon find out.

Next: Gordon's Budget Box!

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