AMD builds a budget box
AMD sent out a complete PC system to showcase the Duron 1.3GHz. What makes this box impressive is its price tag: Duron included, the components that make up this rig cost under $600 according to listings on Pricewatch. Not bad for a rig showcasing AMD's flagship value processor.


AMD's $600 Duron 1.3GHz showcase box

Six hundred bucks doesn't get you the world, but for the majority of users, what AMD has cooked up is more than enough. Here are the specs:

  • AMD Duron 1.3GHz processor (with heat sink/fan)
  • ECS KS75A motherboard (SiS 735 chipset)
  • 128MB PC2100 CAS 2 DDR SDRAM
  • Leadtek GeForce2 MX200 graphics card
  • Integrated AC'97 audio
  • Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
  • IBM 60GXP 20GB 7200rpm hard disk drive
  • Mitusmi 48X CD-ROM drive
  • 3.5" floppy disk drive
  • ATX mid-tower case
  • Antec 300W power supply
At the heart of the budget box is, of course, the Duron 1.3GHz. The processor is mated with the SiS 735 chipset on an ECS KS75A motherboard. We've been hearing a lot of good things about this board, and about the SiS 735, which integrates the functionality of a north bridge and south bridge into a single chip. While integrating the north and south bridges into one chip saves money, it also allows for a crazy-fast 1.2GB/s multi-threaded internal I/O link between the two. SiS even knows how to build a proper PCI bus. Cool.


When you stop to think about it, it's amazing what you can get for $600 these days. Considering that the new Durons are about as fast, clock for clock, as the older Athlon Thunderbirds, this is one heck of a powerful rig for the price.

Of course, our power users' hearts are compelled to ask, "if only..." If only they'd included a Kyro II card (or maybe a GeForce2 MX400) for a few bucks more and really improved graphics performance. If only RAM prices hadn't shot up recently, so that 256MB would have made in it under the $600 cutoff.

Still, we have fewer complaints than you might think. The SiS 735's AC'97 audio controller produces much better sound than VIA's, so this rig's built-in audio may be good enough for most folks. According to Damage's ears, the sound is on par with CMI's 8738 audio chip. Impressive. And SiS's built-in Ethernet controller works as advertised—no complaints there.

All told, this $600 budget rig does a nice job of illustrating exactly why the Duron exists. When every dollar counts, you can build one heck of a box around this processor for not very much money. Not long ago, a system this powerful would have occupied the loftiest heights of the high end of the PC price range.

The cheapo challenge
AMD claims its budget rig is cheaper and faster than what you can buy in a Celeron system for the same price. Specifically, AMD claims that for about the same price as its budget rig, you can only get a Celeron system with SDRAM and integrated graphics. We decided to put these claims to the test by pricing out comparable systems on Pricewatch using both the Duron and the Celeron. Here's what we came up with:

As you can see, the total costs on both systems came out well below $600. However, we neglected to include a few things, including shipping costs. We just picked the cheapest ATX case we could find with the appropriate number of drive bays, and it turned out to be exceptionally cheap. It's probably not as nice as the case AMD picked out.

Regardless, the reality is obvious. If you go with cheapy ECS motherboards based on SiS chipsets, you can build a cheap Celeron system with DDR memory for about the same price as AMD's budget Duron rig. Now the Celeron, with its pokey 100MHz system bus, probably won't benefit much at all from DDR memory. (Doubt it? See this article.) Still, AMD's price game doesn't favor the Duron as heavily as they claim.

We should note that AMD asked us politely to benchmark this budget box "as is" before ripping the Duron chip out and sticking it into a different test system. Unfortunately, a number of inconvenient realities conspired to prevent us from testing this rig intact.

Mainly, Damage was too cheap to pay shipping to Canada.

This whole "budget box" mentality must've rubbed off on him. So we'll have to settle for our standard Duron test setup. Damage promises to come along behind and test the ECS K7S5A mobo in a separate review.