The Budget Box
With AMD's Bulldozer proving to be a bit of a gaming disaster, Intel's prices have gone up, but we still think it's worth spending a bit extra on the powerful beating heart of our PC. This chip is a beauty at stock speeds, but shines after 10 minutes of fiddling in the BIOS, regularly hitting 4.5GHz when overclocked. At these speeds it'll even slice through Skyrim at max detail like a laser beam through butter.
Price: $224.99
CPU Cooler: Intel Retail Stock Cooler
In the interests of pricing, let's stick with the default cooler – whack another $75 on if you want to overclock this chip to melting point.
Price: $0
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3
Don't let the price tag fool you – this board has everything you need to build a top of the line ninja. Most importantly are the three PCI Express x16 slots, so that when you finally win Powerball you can upgrade to a tri-video card system. We especially like the GUI BIOS, which makes overclocking less intimidating than a sleepy kitten.
Price: $114.99
With AMD still having issues running Battlefield 3 without stuttering, we're sticking with the boys in green, and thus recommend this GTX 560 Ti-packing workhorse. The ZOTAC brand might not come with many frills, but at the end of the day all we care about is raw performance, and this budget beast is perfect for all of today's big games.
Price: $229.99
RAM: Crucial Ballistix sport 4GB DDR3 1600
Four gigs is the minimum we'd expect in any gaming rig these days, and it's hard to go past such a great price. These Crucial sticks aren't just cheap, they're also excellent quality and offer a little headroom for overclocking, if you're that way inclined.
Price: $29.99
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM SATA 6.0 Gb/s Hard Drive
Sadly SSDs are well out of the price range of the affordable gamer, but this speedy drive will still load Arkham City before you can say, "Holy Batdrive!"
Price: $59.99
Unfortunately we can't do away with the DVD drive like we did the floppy... just yet. This burner is perfect for loading new games off disk (how archaic!) or backing up your game saves.
Price: $18.99
Power Supply: Corsair Builder Series CX600 PSU
Corsair provide some of the cleanest power supplies in the business, an absolute must if you're looking for a rock solid PC. This 600W supply should easily handle another video card if you decide to upgrade to an SLI rig in the future.
Price: $56.99
Case: BitFenix Shinobi
BitFenix are a relative newcomer to the case scene, and the Shinobi is a perfect example of why we love 'em. With sleek black lines and cutting edge interior design, it's hard to believe this case doesn't cost twice the price.
Price: $69.99
Total cost without accessories: $805.92
Accessories:
Keyboard: Microsoft SideWinder X4
Considering the keyboard is such an important link between you and the virtual avatar you're inhabiting, scrimping on it is a bad idea. So don't – get this affordable yet quality keyboard instead.
Price: $49.99
To rule the virtual battlefield you'll need pin-sharp precision, and the gaming-grade laser in this little rodent delivers just that.
Price: $59.99
Monitor: Acer B243H 24" LCD Monitor
We've upgraded the display this month to give you another couple of inches of screen real estate. The 2ms response time means ghosts will stay in the past, while the 1080p resolution will bring your games to HD life.
Price: $219.99
Total price including accessories: $1135.89
If you've got extra cash to spend, give our Beast build a gander on the next page.
