Our associate editor tackled his tasks with some controversial choices.
Sadly, the process of building a $500 rig was more a battle of shopping know-how than computer savvy. I had a feeling Gordon and I would be stuck with nearly identical parts, as there’s not much wiggle room once you deduct $40 from the total for sales tax and plunk down cash for a generic power supply, optical drive, and hard drive. I correctly assumed we’d be purchasing the same CPU, the much-overclockable E4300, but I thought we’d at least see a bit of a shoot-out in videocards—at the $100 level there are some options.
ATI cards ended up being too expensive for consideration in this challenge, so I went with an Nvidia-based 7600 GS. It’s not the best card on the market, but I was relatively confident I’d be able to get decent performance out of it. If I remember correctly, I did see a cheaper 8500 when shopping. But for my money, the 7600 is the better choice—no DirectX 10 support, but let’s be honest: The very few DX10 titles available right now bring even 8800-model cards to their knees. There’s no way an 8500 would ever be able to run a DX10 game, so I’d rather bank on a solid DX9 card.
It didn’t take long at all for me to assemble my PC—a big advantage to working without a case—and load the OS, but it would be hours before my machine was truly finished. After several failed attempts at booting, I realized that my mobo was incompatible with my CPU, and I had to drive back to the store for a replacement. And while the new mobo was able to boot just fine, it proved virtually worthless at overclocking. I was only able to push the CPU to 1.99GHz, a far cry from the potential 2.5GHz + I was envisioning during the initial checkout. This cheap motherboard absolutely destroyed my plan and has firmly convinced me to not skimp when it comes to mobos—not if I want to tweak my system to awesome levels, that is.
The videocard overclocked nicely, but when I say nicely, it’s like the difference between fourth and inches and fourth and a few more inches. Sure, my rig destroyed Gordon’s in the graphics-heavy tests. But that freaking motherboard and its horrible VIA chipset ended up counterbalancing any performance gains I expected from an overclocked processor. This motherboard was the gatekeeper to my grand design. Of course, in this case, it’s more a flaming bridge between the rock and the proverbial hard place.
Did I learn anything from the building experience? Yeah, don’t build a PC for $500. Would I do anything differently? I’d stick with a stock cooler and save myself a whopping $10. As for the case, I still wouldn’t bother. You just can’t dress a turd. Putting these parts into a chassis implies that what’s inside is a functional computer. A cardboard enclosure is perfectly fitting for the performance you get from a $500 train wreck.
Comments are closed on this article
skyspydude1
May 03, 2009 at 10:14pm
My first comp build costed me about $300 or so and could run most games fairly repectively, now my $800 machine can run Crysis on Med-High at 26 fps, with liquid cooling ad sli graphix
HeartBurnKid
October 30, 2007 at 10:53am
I think the mistake both editors made here was going with Intel silicon. Athlon 64 X2s would probably be more cost-effective at this price point. A quick glance at Pricewatch shows the C2D E4300 going at $138.49, which is more than an Athlon 64 X2 5200 (going at $128.97), and motherboard prices are comparable. Sure, the C2D is a better chip family, but I think that, considering both sides were forced to go with the slowest C2D, the Athlon chip would probably outdo it nicely.
Oh, and I do agree with EBM as far as this serving a portion of your audience that normally goes unserved. I wouldn't mind seeing a few articles like this in the future -- I don't want to see MaxPC lose its gonzo, balls-to-the-wall attitude, but how about an occasional article putting, say, graphics card under $150 head to head? Call it the "Best of the Rest" or something.
EarthBoundMisfit
October 29, 2007 at 3:51pm
Registered Linux User #404122
Microsoft has encountered a critical system error and must now shut down. Better get Bill Gate$ on the phone for this one.......
[img]http//i35.photobucket.com/albums/d183/NunofyaBidness/404122.png[/img]A few months ago...I voiced my displeasure that MaximumPC wasn't doing enough for some of its readers, in that not everyone could afford to drop the kind of money to build a DECENT gaming computer.
You folks have taken that to heart...and given people options as far as attempting to build cheaper rigs...and in that I give you many kudos.
Tell me gentlemen...how about ordering some parts from eBay next time??Glenn Condrey
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