Updated 13 Feb, 2012, 6:30 pm IST

A Budget PC Under Rs. 20,000

22 Mar, 2007, 12:30 pm IST | Gaurav Seth

We help you build a well-built machine within your budget

Our previous guide on building a budget PC under 20,000 was by far, one of the most popular feature article on the Tech2.com website and television. To keep up with the pace of changing times, where technology gets outdated in the blink of an eye, we are back with our first revision. There aren’t any major changes that we have made, in fact we are still using the same processor and motherboard. What has primarily changed are the prices along with a few parts and the names of some manufacturers. Please keep in mind that we have carefully chosen the parts that equally fulfill important criteria such as performance, price, availability, warranty and support.

An excerpt from our previous Budget PC article that reads (and still holds true):
With computer components becoming increasingly powerful over the years, you can now have a powerful, good looking and feature rich desktop PC for as less as twenty thousand rupees. That’s exactly what we are going to do in the following article. We will be building a fully functional system that easily complies to our regular computing needs like web surfing, office applications and entertainment in the form of movies and music and can also handle multi tasking to a degree.

Processor: AMD Sempron 64 2800+ (Rs. 1,825)

At Rs. 1,825, the Sempron 64 2800+ is one of the cheapest able processors available. You may argue as to why we didn’t go for the AMD 3000+ (socket AM2) costing around Rs. 3,300. The justification to that is we are not focusing on hardcore gaming. For general computing needs as mentioned before, this processor is good enough. For the technically inclined, the Sempron 64 2800+ is a 64-bit single core processor running at 1.6 GHz with 256 KB of L2 cache. It is a socket 754 processor with its successors being socket 939 and the latest, socket AM2.

Motherboard: Asus K8V-VM Ultra (Rs. 2,450)

Asus boards are synonymous with good features and rock solid stability and the K8V-VM Ultra is no different. It’s a decent micro-ATX board based on the VIA chipset. Even though the machine is not oriented towards high resolution gaming, by adding a budget graphic card like Nvidia’s 7300GS (Rs 3500) you can still enjoy recent games at normal resolutions (like 1024 x 768 ) and just for that, the motherboard features a 16X PCI Express slot. That for a budget board is remarkable. It offers 4 USB ports at the back on the I/O panel plus additional four through the USB connector on the motherboard (they would be used to power the USB ports on the front panel of your case. For more on the specifications check it out on the Asus website here.

RAM: Corsair 512MB DDR 400 Value Select (Rs. 2,184)

We have kept the RAM size the same. What we have changed is the manufacturer. Reason? The prices have fallen. A Transcend JetRam 512MB DDR400 stick would cost around Rs. 1,850 whereas a Corsair 512MB DDR 400 stick costs Rs. 2,184. The advantage with Corsair is that, apart from a better quality chip being used in manufacturing, it also adds a lifetime warranty. Lifetime warranty doesn’t mean that the product is warranted for your lifetime, rather it’s meant for the life of the product.

We have chosen 512MB as its the bare minimum you should be looking at, using either Windows XP or Vista. Though, we recommend 1GB of RAM with a dedicated graphics card for enjoying a better Vista Aero experience. The new aero user interface is a visual delight, complete with features such as glass-like interface elements, translucent Start Menu and taskbar, Windows Flip 3D, and Live Taskbar Thumbnails.