$350 barebones Vista/7 PC
Prices of PC components are falling weekly, and $350 will buy you a lot more horsepower today that it would a few months ago. Let’s look at what sort of all-purpose barebones PC system you can put together for around $350 - we want a system that’ll be tough enough to handle Windows Vista and Windows 7 yet not cost the earth. Component gallery CPU Let’s start with the CPU. The trick with budget builds is to get a good, solid CPU without overspending. The ideal price range is somewhere around a quarter to a third of the overall budget you have planned. Here I’ve gone for Intel’s 2.5GHz E5200 (Wolfdale) dual-core CPU. If you’re into overclocking then you should be able to get this CPU to 3.0GHz and beyond, but even if you keep it at stock speeds you have a good performer well under $100.00 Price: $83.00
Motherboard : For this build I’ve chose the ASUS P5N-EM HDMI board. This is a good quality board which features the NVIDIA GeForce 7100/nForce 630i, supports 4GB of RAM, PATA/SATA and SATA RAID hard drive connectors, HDMI, 4x USB and on-board audio.
To top off the features, this board comes in micro-ATX form-factor so it’ll fit into a small case, making it suited to home theater use. Price: $70
RAM 2GB of RAM for this build. Nothing fancy here, 2x 1GB Crucial DDR2 800 Price: $25.00
PSU A PC like the one outlined above doesn’t need a mini-nuclear reactor to power it. We can get away with a 300W. Also, in the interests of the environment and overall running cost, it’s worth getting a PSU that’s 80 PLUS certified. I’ve gone here for the SeaSonic SS-300ET 300W PSU Price: $37.00
Total build price: $345 … all that’s left to do is add your own case (starting at about $20).
Price wriggle
There’s a fair bit of wriggle room in the price of this PC. If graphics aren’t important to you and you want to save $80 then you can get rid of the Radeon HD 4670 and rely on the on-board graphics. Alternatively you could by a budget card.
There’s also wriggle room in the price when it comes down to the CPU.
Motherboard : For this build I’ve chose the ASUS P5N-EM HDMI board. This is a good quality board which features the NVIDIA GeForce 7100/nForce 630i, supports 4GB of RAM, PATA/SATA and SATA RAID hard drive connectors, HDMI, 4x USB and on-board audio.
To top off the features, this board comes in micro-ATX form-factor so it’ll fit into a small case, making it suited to home theater use. Price: $70
Graphics card:
The ultimate dilemma … do you go for an ATI or NVIDIA graphics card? Here I’ve gone to ATI for a mid-range card … but don’t let the price tag fool you, this card really kicks pixels! Price: $80.00
RAM 2GB of RAM for this build. Nothing fancy here, 2x 1GB Crucial DDR2 800 Price: $25.00
The HIS Hightech H467QS512P Radeon HD 4670 features 320 stream processors, 512MB of GDDR3 memory, DirectX 10.1 support, and HDMI. It’s not exactly a 4870 but it delivers enough performance for anyone other than a hardcore gamer. Price: $50.00
PSU A PC like the one outlined above doesn’t need a mini-nuclear reactor to power it. We can get away with a 300W. Also, in the interests of the environment and overall running cost, it’s worth getting a PSU that’s 80 PLUS certified. I’ve gone here for the SeaSonic SS-300ET 300W PSU Price: $37.00Total build price: $345 … all that’s left to do is add your own case (starting at about $20).
Price wriggle
There’s a fair bit of wriggle room in the price of this PC. If graphics aren’t important to you and you want to save $80 then you can get rid of the Radeon HD 4670 and rely on the on-board graphics. Alternatively you could by a budget card.
There’s also wriggle room in the price when it comes down to the CPU.
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