(Updated September 29, 2004)

Processor (AMD): Sempron 3100 (S754, 1.8GHz, 256KB) 

Processor (P4): Pentium 4 2.4C (2.4GHz, 800MHz, Retail)

Motherboard (AMD): Gigabyte GA-K8NS (NF3 250) S754

Motherboard (P4): Foxconn 865A01-PE-GLS (i865PE)

Memory for Athlon System: Mushkin PC3200 Basic CL2.5 512MB

Memory for P4 System: Corsair PC3200 Value Select CL2.5 2x256mb

Video: PowerColor 9600XT Ultra 128MB (500/680) Retail

Sound: Integrated on Motherboard

Hard Drive: Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 2MB EIDE (OEM)

CD-Burner/DVD Player: Samsung 52x32x52x16x Black (OEM)

Floppy Drive: Sony Black (OEM)

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (OEM)

TOTAL for Athlon System

TOTAL for Pentium 4 System

What Makes a Budget Game System?

The Budget Game System aims to push back those limits, allowing you plenty of space to enjoy the latest computer games, without requiring you to take out a second mortgage or sell your car.  Above, you see the list of basic components that make up this system, as well as their approximate costs.  The prices primarily are taken from those listed by NewEgg at the time of this write-up, September 29, 2004.  They are approximate, because they do not include shipping and are subject to change.  They still should give you a pretty good idea of what the various parts cost.

In what follows, I describe in more detail the components listed above and the reasoning that went to selecting them.  While I tried to keep the cost of the overall system down, there are lots of alternative components, especially if you are willing to spend a bit more.  I mention some of these potential upgrades in what follows, and there are even some places where you might save a bit more money, if you need to.

Use this information to help assemble the parts for your own do-it-yourself project.  Or, use it to better sort through what large system builders, such as Dell and Gateway have to offer.  

If you aren't inclined to build your own system, Sequoyah Computer can put it together for you.  The total cost would be whatever reimbursement for the parts and shipping would come to, along with a $100 setup fee.  (Tennessee folks will have to pay sales tax, too.)

Happy Browsing!

The Antec SLK3700AMB is a good looking case with an Antec SL350 power supply.  The specs on this power supply are that it provides up to 330 watts of total power, up to 35 amps on the 5 volt rail, up to 28 amps on the 3.3 volt rail, and up to 16 amps on the 12 volt rail.  The rating for the 5 volt and 3.3 volt rails combined is up to 230 watts.  This last rating is an important one, since it helps to determine how well a power supply can live up to it's advertised overall power rating.  A nice feature of this case is the use of a large 120mm exhaust fan on the back of the case.  This will help keep the noise level down.  It comes with the 120mm exhaust fan installed, and there is room for an optional, 120mm fan in the front.

Antec also offers a very similar looking SLK3700 BQE, now.  This case usually sells for a bit more than the original SLK3700AMB, and it incorporates a few changes that are aimed at making this a quieter case.  Primarily, it makes use of a hard drive cage that is similar to the one in the Antec Sonata, where the drives are isolated from direct contact with the cage by rubber grommets.

Antec also has started offering some slightly smaller sized case that also make use of a 350 watt power supply and have a 120mm exhaust fan.  These smaller cases still accomodate a full-sized ATX motherboard, although the fit will be a bit tighter than with the SLK3700.  These newer cases include an opening on the side for an "air-guide", which allows the fan on the CPU heatsink to draw air in directly from the outside and blow it down on the processor's heatsink.  These are quite effective at keeping your processor a few degrees cooler.  The SLK1650 is the basic version of these smaller mid-towers, and the SLK2650 is the slightly fancier version, with a door covering the external drives, similar to that seen on the SLK3700, above.

The main issue that I considered when deciding what processor to make the primary pick for a Budget Game System was whether to continue with AMD's Athlon XP line, which has been my first recommendation, or whether it was time to move on to the Athlon 64 processors, which are already the first choices in our Enthusiast and Maximum Game System guides.  In the end, I decided that the presence of the the new Sempron 3100 allowed an affordable bridge from the socket A world of the Athlon XPs to the socket 754 realm of the Athlon 64s.

Sempron is AMD's new budget line of processors, replacing their former Duron line.  You'll find Semprons for both the older socket a motherboards and the Sempron 3100 for the socket 754 motherboard.  The Sempron 3100 is based off of the Athlon 64; so, it has the integrated memory controller that the Athlon 64 does, and it is running at 1.8GHz, just as the Athlon 64 2800 is.  However, it doesn't actually support the 64 bit extensions that the Athlon 64 does, and it has only 256KB of cache, compared to the 512KB of cache on most of the current Athlon 64s.  The smaller amount of cache means that the Sempron 3100 does not perform quite as well as the Athlon 64 2800, but the gap is not a large one.  It certainly is no where near as hobbled as are the Celerons relative to the Pentium 4s that they are derived from.  This makes it an excellent budget level processor for a system that needs to be powerful enough to play today's sophisticated computer games.  Sharky's Extreme gives a good picture of how this processor stacks up against others, such as the Athlon 64 2800, Athlon XP 2800, and the Pentium 4 2.8GHz processors.

Of course, if you wanted a bit more power, the Athlon 64 2800 sells for around $144, compared to the $124 that the Sempron 3100 sells for.

It is possible to match up your socket 754 processor with an economical motherboard.  Gigabyte, for example, produces a no frills motherboard based on the nForce3 250 chip.  The GA-K8NS (shown below) sells for around $71.

The socket 754 motherboards are single channel memory motherboards, so we can install our memory modules one at a time, without out the need to install them in pairs, as is necessary for dual channel memory motherboards.  A single 512MB stick of Mushkin's Basic PC3200 memory should get things off to a good start, and more can always be added later if a particular game or application seems to need it.  Mushkin's price is competitive with other brands, such as Corsair and Kingston, and I've always found their customer service to be top notch.

Although the AMD system described above would be my first recommendation, because of its lower price and better performance in games than a comparable Intel system, I know that a lot of people still prefer an Intel system.  And it's hard to argue with Intel's long-term reputation for producing solid and high quality components, and for a number of applications, especially when it comes to working with multi-media files, the Pentium 4 processors offer excellent performance.

The best performance comes from a Pentium 4 that is running on Intel's 800MHz frontside bus (actually the bus's clock speed is 200MHz, but it effectively is equivalent to 800MHz, in terms of data transmission speeds).  The least expensive Pentium 4 with the 800MHz frontside bus is the 2.4GHz model, which is a bit more expensive than an Athlon 64 2800.  Since the Sempron 3100 and the Athlon 64 2800 provide performance roughly equal to Pentium 4s in the 2.8GHz to 3.0Ghz range, we are giving up a bit of performance with this 2.4GHz Pentium 4.  

Some inexpensive socket 478 motherboards using Intel's 865 chipset are now available, perhaps because of Intel's introduction of their new 915 and 925 chipsets supporting the new socket 775.  This makes our socket 478 motherboard a bit dated; but, it still performs well; and, it fits well with our goal of putting together a system with good performance at a low cost.  

Foxconn, which has been an original equipment manufacturer for a long time, has started making their products available through retail channels.  Their 865A01-PE-6LS motherboard is available for around $59.  And, there a quite a few other i865PE motherboards from the likes of Soyo, Albatron, MSI, Epox, and Abit in the $69 to $78 range, if you prefer a brand that you are more familiar with.

Since this is a dual channel motherboard, a pair of DIMMs will be necessary.  Corsair's Value Select PC3200 (CL 2.5) comes in a 256MB size; so, a pair of these will work fine.

If you are really on a tight budget, you could still opt to go the Athlon XP route, which is what we've done for our Budget Game System in the past.  However, I don't think that you want to go with anything much less than a 2GHz speed Athlon XP, since we are already going backwards when it comes to performance, compared to either the Sempron 3100 or the Pentium 4 2.4C.  The Athlon XP 2400 based on the 256KB Thorton or Thoroughbred core is probably the best choice for someone looking to get as much quality game performance as they can for their money.  This processor runs at 2.0GHz and makes use of a 133MHz bus.  At around $73 for an OEM package, the money saved seems to be enough to justify the level of performance that is given up.  (I find the stock heatsink and fans that come with the retail packaged Athlon XPs to be rather noisey; so, I recommend the OEM model with a third-party cooler, such as the Speeze Falcon Rock. 

Of course, you'll need an inexpensive motherboard to go with the Athlon XP.  Those based on the single memory channel nForce2 400 (the non-ultra version) should be the least expensive of the Nvidia based motherboards.  Indeed, there is Gigabyte's GA-7NF-R2, which sells for $49.  Other non-ultra nForce2 motherboards seem a bit expensive, since you can also find a dual memory channel nForce2 400 Ultra for as little as $55 (the Epox EP-8RDA3i).  I think that either of these should provide a suitably inexpensive home for a mid-range Athlon XP.  Although the Athlon XP 2400 only requires PC 2100 memory, I'd recommend that you go ahead and pick up a single 512MB stick of PC3200 memory, such as the Mushkin module mentioned previously.  I recommend using just one module, regardless of whether this will be used with the ultra or non-ultra version of the nForce2 chipset.  

The Athlon XP 2400, Speeze heastsink, and Gigabyte GA-7NF-R2 will save you about $58 over the cost of the Sempron 3100 and Gigabyte GA-K8NS, but it also gives up quite a bit of performance to realize those savings.  Again, take a look at the Sempron 3100 Review at Sharky's Extreme to see how the Sempron 3100 consistently out performs even an Athlon XP 2800.

If you need to spend less money, the 9600 Pro, which has a core clock speed of 400MHz and memory running at 600MHz (DDR) can be found for as little as $109.  A word of caution when shopping for video cards, double check the clock speeds for the graphics chip and for the memory.  There can be a fair amount of variation with regard to this, and the naming conventions won't always make clear to you whether a particular card is actually what you think it is. 

If you are looking to spend a bit more money, the Nvidia based FX5700 Ultra is both slightly faster and a bit more expensive than the 9600XT.  It has a core speed of 475MHz and memory running at 950MHz (DDR).  Leadtek's A360 Ultra TDH, for example, sells for $148.  Beyond that, the Radeon 9800 Pro is the card to get.  This card currently is selling for right around $200 in the 128MB version, but it is significantly faster than the other cards mentioned.  Once again, beware of under-clocked versions, such as the EZ model.  A 9800 Pro should have a core running at about 380MHz and memory running at around 680MHz (DDR).

(Tom's Hardware offers some benchmarks comparing a range of current video cards to help you get a better idea of how they stack up against each other.)    

For sound, these budget systems can make good use of the 6-channel audio integrated into both the Athlon and the P4 motherboards.  While onboard sound was at one time scoffed at, the quality of the hardware has improved and it is being matched with much faster processors, which readily absorb the extra work being imposed upon them.  It makes sense to me to give this onboard sound a try, first, to see if it is adequate for meeting your needs, since an add-on sound card can always be purchased later.  

If you do decide to upgrade, the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 cards are just about the only option for a game-oriented system.  These cards are not inexpensive.  The original Audigy 2 can be found in an OEM version for around $75, and a retail boxed Audigy 2 ZS sells for about $86 (the ZS version supports 7.1 sound, instead of the Audigy 2's original 6.1 sound).   A small bonus with these cards is that they come with a firewire port, which many inexpensive motherboards do not include.

Since being able to both burn CDs and read DVD-ROMs is pretty much essential these days, I'm suggesting a combo optical drive that does both of these tasks.  There are quite a few choices of manufacturers for these; Samsung has a 52x322x52x16x model for sale in an OEM package for around $38.

You can pick up an OEM packaged floppy drive for $10.  I still like having one of these available for ease of use when it comes to running some diagnostic and other small utilities that don't use the main operating system.