System Buyers Guide: PCs under $825

Intel Budget

In the past, Intel offerings have tended to be more expensive than configurations from AMD, but our Intel and AMD budget PCs carry virtually identical prices. With prices the same, you can choose your budget system based on other features that are important to you.

The E7500 ups the bus to 1066 from the 800FSB of our entry-level Intel system. A dual-core 2.93GHz with 3MB of cache won't be a slouch in any department in your budget system. Yes the new Core i7 is faster, but it is also much more expensive. The question for a budget system is how good the performance is for the money spent. The E7500 SYSmark 2007 score is about 72% of the top Core i7 965 Extreme. That is fantastic performance for a CPU that costs just $140. The E7500 is also a candidate for overclocking if you are inclined to move the performance a bit closer toward the 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo E8600, which reaches 88% of the i7 965 SYSmark performance. The only drawback to this processor choice is the lack of Intel's Virtualization Technology (Intel VT).  If running the Windows Virtual PC under Windows 7 for XP Mode (as one example) is important to you, then moving up to the E8x00 range is the only valid option near this price point.

Unfortunately, we do not have any motherboards in the Intel budget sector that offer the price to performance ratio of our AMD choice. However, we did find a board that would suit most of our needs and it also comes from Gigabyte. The GA-G41M-ES2L motherboard offers a very solid platform for our processor and discrete ATI 4770 video card choices. It could also double as a barebones entry-level contender. This board features the Intel G41 Northbridge and ICH7 Southbridge along with support for 8GB of memory. Gigabyte tosses in the Realtek ALC 888B HD audio codec, Realtek RTL8111DL Gigabit LAN controller, eight USB 2.0 ports, one IDE connector, and four SATA 3Gb/s connectors. The board uses the uATX form factor, and while uATX boards are often a layout nightmare the Gigabyte layout is very good for most applications.

Designed for the casual overclocker in mind, the BIOS allows for decent headroom with FSB speeds hitting 333MHz on our E5200 and E7400 processors. The board has been extremely stable in testing so far and we recommend it. Our only drawback is the small number of SATA ports and the missing support for AHCI/NCQ due to the use of ICH7. In order to get the ICH10 Southbridge, you will have to step up to the G43/P43/P45 offerings that run an additional $15~$30 more for performance-oriented motherboards. That will be a small price for many users, but when every penny counts it can certainly matter.

We did not select an aftermarket CPU heatsink for either budget system to go along with our CPU choices. For this budget, a $50 solution from Thermalright or Scythe is simply not a realistic option, and the stock AMD and Intel heatsinks are good for decent if unspectacular overclocks of the E7500 and Phenom II 720BE. However, if you want spectacular overclocking, both CPUs benefit from better cooling and you can take either CPU to Mt. Olympus heights by adding a better CPU heatsink/fan. You'll just have to decide if the $50 spent on a separate cooler and higher CPU overclocks are better than a larger HDD, faster GPU, better LCD, or more RAM.

Again, we have discussed the option of discrete video cards for our budget systems in past guides. However, it was always an option that would drive up the cost of the system by $150 or so. We just could not recommend an inexpensive budget based card like the ATI HD 4550 as the price to performance benefits over the integrated solutions were just not there. Our opinions changed with the release of the ATI HD 4770 card last month. We did our best to figure out a way to shoe horn in this remarkable "budget" card to create a system that allows midrange gaming performance in most game titles, excellent HTPC capabilities, HD video playback, and crystal clear Aero performance at high resolutions in Windows 7 or Vista. Yes, not everyone in this market sector needs this "luxury" option. We are selecting the ATI Radeon HD 4770 as our jack-of-all-trades GPU for our budget configurations. If you want less performance for a lower cost, the MSI HD 4670 is a reasonable alternative at just $53 after rebate.

The rest of the components are the same as those found in the AMD budget system. Sound cards at this budget are simply an unnecessary luxury, and the onboard offerings continue to improve with each new motherboard generation. You can be reasonably happy with the onboard sound until you figure out if you want to upgrade to something better.