We won’t blow smoke up your PSU: Spending more money on a PC generally gives you a better computing experience. But that doesn’t mean that anything short of an exotic $7,000 PC can’t be fun and fulfilling, and it doesn’t mean that folks on a very lean budget are doomed to a piss-poor computing experience. So for anyone who isn’t flush with cash, we’ve laid out three nicely configured PCs—one for every budget.

The first is a sub-$500 rig that offers more gaming performance than a top-of-the-line gaming GPU... from 2007. The second PC, for just $1,300, is an everyman’s PC that’s sure to make Joe the Nerd a happy camper. The third PC is an honest-to-goodness enthusiast-class PC at the down-to-earth price of $2,100.

If you’re itching to build a rig, the time to do it is now!

The Mission: Way back in the recession-bound depths of 2009, we skipped our normal balls-to-the-wall Dream Machine build in favor of three more modest PCs. Rather than a $10,000 ode to excess, we built rigs actual people would build. Our $1,400 midrange system, which we called the Budget Surplus, was kitted out with an Intel Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.5GHz on a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R motherboard with 6GB DDR3, a 1.5TB boot drive, and the finest in dual-GPU technology: a Radeon HD 4870x2. 

The Budget Surplus is showing its age—nearly three years old! I’ve had many people with similar systems ask if it’s time for a new rig, but I’m hesitant to recommend a major upgrade before Ivy Bridge and Ivy Bridge-E come out.

Rather than going all-out on a new machine, I’m going to bring our 2009-era box into the present day with a few upgrades that’ll make the machine feel new again, and that I’ll be able to bring with me when I do bite the bullet on a new CPU and motherboard.

Read on for more!