There was a time when all $800 would get you was a crappy pre-built PC riddled with proprietary parts from a bulk OEM. If you wanted to build a low-cost PC without all the pitfalls of proprietary hardware, you had to roll your own. That all changed when boutique system builders began to pump out lower cost machines using off the shelf parts, and if that's the route you're looking to take, you have two new systems to choose from.

Perhaps taking advantage of the recent Sandy Bridge chipset fiasco, AMD has gone and reduced the price of several Phenom processors by up to $30, depending on the chip, Fudzilla reports.

Starting with the quad-core processors, AMD shaved $10 from its Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition, 965 Black Edition, and 970 Black Edition parts. Six-core savings are a bit more significant, with the Phenom II X6 1055T dropping from $199 to $175, the 1090T from $235 to $205, and the 1100T from $265 to $239. The 1100T is AMD's flagship hexacore chip, which runs at 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) and includes 6MB of L3 cache.

If you're planning on building a system around AMD's six-core Phenom II X6 platform, you may want to sit tight for a few days and see how things shake out. In exchange for your patience, you might be rewarded with a more power-friendly chip than you were anticipating. Or not.

According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, AMD is prepping a slightly revised Phenom II X6 1055T processor. What's curious about this is Fudzilla says the new part will use the same E0 stepping as the current 1055T part, but come spec'd at 95W TDP instead of 125W TDP.

There aren't any U.S. vendors showing the new part just yet, though one was spotted at this German vendor's website. According to the listing, all the other specs remain the same, including 2.8GHz clockspeed, 6MB shared cache, and 4.0GT/s Hypertransport.

Boutique system vendor Maingear is hoping to capitalize on AMD's low-priced 6-core Phenom II X6 processor line by releasing a pair of modestly priced gaming PCs built around the new platform. It's called the VYBE Limited Edition and it comes in two baseline configurations.

The first one sells for $999 and comes built around AMD's Phenom II X6 1055T processor, the lesser of AMD's two chips. Maingear couples the CPU with AMD's new 890GX chipset, which boasts support for SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0. Other features include a Radeon HD 5670 videocard, 4GB of DDR3-1333 memory, 640GB hard drive, DVD burner, 500W power supply, and Windows 7 Home Premium.

For $300 more, Maingear bumps the processor up to a 1090T (3.2GHz). Other upgrades include a Radeon HD 5830 videocard and 6GB of DDR3-1333 memory, otherwise the specs remain the same.

Both setups are available now direct from Maingear.