How-to: Build an Affordable Quad Core Desktop for $500
Posted by Jon Lee in How-to, Personal, tags: cpu, DIY, gaming, graphics card, How-to, Intel, quad core
Great news! I won the grand prize in the Business-Directory.com contest I entered a few days ago! This means $500 cash in my pocket to spend as I wish. As I had mentioned in the previous post, I am in the process of building a system and $500 can go a long way to completing it.
I realize this article will probably be outdated within a few months with prices of computer components constantly dropping but since I’ve done the research already, I figured some readers might be able to benefit from it.
Core components
Prices of these components are the cheapest I’ve seen them for at retail stores (in Canada) after rebates and savings. You may be able to find them for cheaper elsewhere. Links may not go to exact product described.
- CPU: ($228) Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4ghz
The highly affordable Q6600 CPU from Intel retails for about $280 but I’ve seen it as low as $228 during sales. This chip is a powerhouse and can safely be overclocked to 3.0ghz using just air cooling. Although it is an “older” 65nm generation chip, its price and pure processing power can’t be beat. - Motherboard: ($70) ABit AB9 Quad GT
There is a lot of freedom in terms of motherboard. If you do decide to overclock your CPU you might need to spend a bit more on a better motherboard. - RAM: ($38) 2×1GB OCZ DDR2 800mhz
RAM prices are steadily falling and you can easily find 2GB for under $40 after rebate. 
Harddrive: ($60) Maxtor 250gb 7200rpm 16MB Cache
These days a quality 500gb hard drive can be had for under $100 but since we are trying to keep things low cost, I’ve chosen a smaller yet more than sufficient 250gb hard drive.- Graphics card: ($65) XFX GeForce 8600GT 512mb GDDR2
An 8600GT may not be able to play the latest games at the highest settings but it can comfortably play almost all games at a reasonable quality level. Hardcore gamers would want to spend more on a 8800GTS. - Case and PSU: ($50) Cooler Master Elite 330 w/ 350W PS
Again, there is a lot of flexibility in this area. To keep things affordable, I’ve selected a low cost case and power supply. As for the CPU fan and heatsink, I am assuming the one that comes with the CPU will be enough as long as you’re not overclocking it.
Total price: $511 (before taxes/shipping)
As you can see, with a lot of patience to wait for sale prices (and a bit of luck), a quad core desktop for around $500 is not unattainable. The hardest piece of this puzzle is probably the CPU itself. I have seen it for $228 about a month ago at a local computer store. It may not be the best system but for around $500, it is definitely a beast that has more processing power than the most powerful home computer just a few years ago.
Of course, this is not the exact system I’ll be building. I’ll be spending a little bit more on some of the better upgrades mentioned above.
Note: The system above doesn’t include a monitor, I suppose you could add a used CRT for $20 to keep the figure around $500 but I figured most people would have an extra monitor sitting around.
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I wish we had a resource like this in the UK, unfortunatly everything pretty much costs double over here anyway. Nice post non-the-less.
This sure is a way to build the computer as described in the title, but one might wonder about the usefulness of the finished product as it may be a bit low in certain variables of its qualities.
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This was very timely. I was just on ebay looking at a used desktop since my primary one has been unreliably crashing lately (3 years old). I looked at buying some ‘barebones’ systems, but they invariably seem to have crappy motherboards with maybe 1 slot. And then trying to discern the best ‘component’ when there are so many to choose from (and I’m not a hardware guru) is pretty overwhelming. I am going to take a look at your choices, and I just might go for it!