M
y original strategy going into the
challenge was to forgo graphics
performance for greater CPU
power. But when I dug up an ad from a com-
peting store that had a GeForce 8600 GT for
$130 ($70 less than Fry’s), I started to seri-
ously consider the possibility of a more bal-
anced box. My strategy was contingent on
the store price-matching, but it still wasn’t a
lead-pipe cinch. I’d have to cut corners else-
where. I briefl y considered cutting the RAM
from 1GB to 512MB but feared the hit I’d
take in our Photoshop CS2 test. And since I
was already opting for single-channel RAM
over dual channel to save $10 and using
DDR2/667, I realized I couldn’t risk it.
As the clock ticked on, I found myself
repeatedly rethinking and recomputing my
confi guration. Then another wrinkle arose:
If I went with the 8600 GT, I’d need a PSU
with a six-pin PCI-E power plug, something
my $40 case/PSU combo certainly didn’t
offer. Thus, I’d need an additional $3.99
converter. Plus, I wondered, would the PSU
have the chops to run the 8600 GT?
All such questions became moot. Witha mere 10 minutes left on the clock, I real-
ized there wasn’t enough time to price
match (which could easily take 20 minutes
of haggling), so I ditched plan A and went
with an all-around moderate system using
a GeForce 8500 GT. Good for applications,
good for gaming—at least if you’re playing
two-year-old games at low resolutions.
Building the system was a snap; it posted
on the fi rst boot and I had the OS installed
inside of 20 minutes. The ECS P965T-A
motherboard, however, lived up to its poor
reputation. The NIC was fl aky, and worst of
all, I couldn’t reliably overclock. I was confi -
dent the E4300 could run at 2.4GHz or 3GHz,
but the mobo wouldn’t cooperate. Since
the NIC was defective, our rules allowed me
to exchange the board for another one that
would potentially overclock, but another $60
mobo wouldn’t salve my overclocking woes;
I remembered why I love premium $250
motherboards so much: They just work. To be
fair to ECS, the board I bought was a return
(which saved me $10). On the other hand, half
the boards on the shelf were returned.
Despite the problems, this is a decentsystem for a newb. It has a dual-layer 16x
DVD burner, supports quad-core proces-
sors, and is DirectX 10 ready. Not bad for
$500. And since it’s in a case, it won’t get
accidentally recycled by your mom.WHAT I’D DO DIFFERENTLY
First, I would have shaved more money from
my graphics card purchase to buy a better
mobo. That would have let me overclock the
E4300 to 3GHz and would have given me
the edge in our CPU-intensive applications
tests. This would be a calculated risk, since
I’d certainly lose the gaming benchmarks,
but they wouldn’t be spectacular in a $500
box anyway. The ultimate solution, but one
that’s diffi cult to come by, would have been to
locate Intel’s new Pentium Dual Core procs.
Basically, declawed Core 2 chips, those pup-
pies should overclock as well as an E4300 for
the price of a Celeron D.Gordon’s Budget Box
How Gordon built his box of modest means, with cash left over for candy
46 MAXIMUMPC OCTOBER 2007
MAXIMUMPC
CHALLENGEANOTHERNothing makes you love quality parts like
working with crappy ones.