Earlier this year we set out to build the ultimate “budget” gaming PC. Using a conservative $900 US budget we were able to build a complete system including LCD monitor and a keyboard/mouse, that was very capable of playing the latest games at the time. Now, just over half a year later, we have decided to re-visit this idea and build another $900 US ultimate budget gaming PC.

The original gaming system featured an Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 processor installed onto a Gigabyte P35-DS3L motherboard, which was also coupled with 2GB of A-DATA DDR2-800 memory. The graphics card of choice at the time for budget systems was the Radeon HD 3870. The system was outfitted with a 500GB WD hard drive and an ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner, which was installed into a Cooler Master Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW case.

Powering all this hardware was the OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS power supply. Then to make the most of it we included the ASUS VW193D 19" LCD and a set of Logitech X-240 speakers. For the keyboard and mouse we went with a simple option, in the form of the Microsoft Standard Desktop 500 package. All up this hardware was purchased for roughly $900 US, and allowed us to play some pretty impressive games using reasonable quality settings.

For example, Crysis was perfectly playable at 1440x900 using medium quality settings, with an average of 48fps. Other games, such as Unreal Tournament 3, saw an average of over 100fps using maximum in game quality settings, while Company of Heroes also averaged 60fps, which was very impressive. In fact, while this performance was very good for a sub $1000 US system, it is still quite good by today’s standards.

As we predicated this configuration should be good for at least 12 months, after which time it may struggle with the most cutting edge games. Furthermore, the configuration is highly upgradable and for less than $200 US gamers could breathe much more life into this gaming system, with a Radeon HD 4850 for example. In fact, this is the graphics card of choice for today’s ultimate budget gaming PC.

This latest update includes much more memory and hard drive space, while not only the graphics card but also the processor is much more powerful than the previously selected hardware. Furthermore, it is now also possible to purchase a much bigger LCD screen without breaking our budget, which will help us make better use of the Radeon HD 4850. Without wasting any more time, let’s take a look at the selected hardware in more detail.