How Low Will We Go?

For some buyers, even a $700-800 performance PC is extravagant. One could speculate about the driving factors behind the sub-$500 PC market, such as frugality, youth or poverty, but in keeping our quality standards high we shot straight for the frugal market.

Yes, we read all the comments posted concerning our sub-$1000 “Low-Cost” gaming system. While most readers had constructive insight concerning possible configuration changes, a few swore by “Absurdly Cheap” components that our experience has proven are likely to fail within the first few months of use. For today’s system we sought to do it right the first time, since nothing drives up the price of a cheap system more readily than replacing failed components.

But how could we keep our quality standard high with such a low budget, if performance was our main priority? A little overclocking is much less dangerous than the use of dubious-quality components, and goes a lot farther towards an overall performance improvement than a “next model up” CPU, RAM, or graphics card. Take a look at our price list.

We don’t expect everyone to agree with our component choices, but we are able to justify each one. Read on to find out how each of these met our criteria.