Econobox alternatives
The preceding selections round out our low-end system, but we've come up with a couple of suggested alternatives, should you wish to tweak the formula a little bit. These alternative options will allow you to step up to better performance for a little bit more money or save a little without too much pain.

Processor
AMD's single-core Athlon 64 3200+ for Socket AM2 is now available for around $80. If you'd rather prioritize gaming over dual-core processing power, pairing the Athlon 64 3200+ with our recommended GeForce 7600 GT (see below) will get you a solid budget gaming system for just over $600. We think the Athlon 64 3200+ is best-suited for that purpose; equivalent Socket AM2 Semprons are clocked lower and have less cache, and Intel hardly has anything worthwhile at this price.

Graphics
The integrated GeForce 6150 in the Asus M2NPV-VM will handle older games reasonably well, but a dedicated graphics card is really a necessity if you plan to use the Econobox for any kind of serious gaming. Luckily, the launch of Nvidia's new $199 GeForce 7900 GS has helped drive prices down in the sub-$200 segment, and you can now nab a GeForce 7600 GT for well under $150. We've picked XFX's GeForce 7600 GT for our alternative this time around. For $141.99, this card offers dual DVI outputs, a "double lifetime" warranty that guarantees support even for second-hand cards, and factory "overclocking" to 580MHz core and 750MHz (1.5GHz effective) memory speeds, up from the default 560MHz/700MHz.

ATI's closest competitor in this price range is the Radeon X1600 XT, but as our benchmarks show, even a GeForce 7600 GT running at default speeds trounces the red team's offering. Besides, Nvidia's drivers should let you combine the GeForce 7600 GT with the Asus motherboard's integrated GeForce 6150 to drive up to four displays, should you happen to have a stock of old monitors lying around.

Audio
Onboard sound is fine for most users, but some may want better playback quality. The Chaintech AV-710 is an interesting deal, because despite its sub-$30 price tag, the card features the ability to route stereo output through a high-quality Wolfson DAC. This trick allows for stereo sound quality well above that of typical onboard audio—and quite a few sound cards—which is great for anyone with decent headphones or stereo speakers. The AV-710 features a VIA Envy24 audio chip that supports 24-bit/192KHz playback and 24-bit/96KHz recording, as well as a lightweight and non-intrusive driver suite.