Top 5 PCs Under $900

This month, Top 5 PCs Under $900 is our rotating specialty-desktops chart. In past issues we evaluated entertainment PCs and corporate PCs.

The concept of buying a PC for under $900 is alluring--especially if you're on a tight budget or looking for a simple second PC. So what can you expect from a system that costs eight bills and change, as most of the ones we tested do? Plenty of processing horsepower and storage for basic computing tasks (such as e-mail, word processing, or spreadsheet number crunching), but generally anemic graphics; action gamers should look elsewhere.

A typical system on our budget chart includes a 17-inch CRT monitor, integrated graphics, two optical drives, and low-end, 2.1-channel speakers--sufficient for minimal audio needs, like playing MP3s.

We awarded the Best Buy in this category to the ABS Sensation 1300, an $899 system with a winning combination of performance and components. Equipped with a 1.8-GHz Athlon XP 2200+ CPU, this model outperformed all others on the chart (and a few power models on our regular chart) with a remarkable PC WorldBench 4 score of 120. It was one of two systems--the FreewayTech Innovation A7000 being the other--to include both DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives, and it has an ample 60GB hard drive.

Cost Concessions

You expect to make some compromises if you buy an under-$900 system. But the trick is in deciding where those compromises will be--performance, storage, display, expansion options, or all of the above if the price goes low enough. For instance, the $400 Microtel Sysmar151 we tested, available only from Wal-Mart's Web site, turned in snail-like performance in our benchmark tests and had a paltry 10GB of storage and only a CD-ROM drive; still, if you spend 90 percent of your PC time on the Internet and managing e-mail, it's perfectly adequate.

One of the most obvious ways PC vendors trim costs is by using slower processors, which in turn typically deliver slower performance. As a group, our cheap PCs had less-impressive overall performance than those on our power and value desktop PC charts--though, with most scoring over 100 on our PC WorldBench 4 test, their speed is still more than satisfactory for most computing applications.

For cheap PCs, all vendors shave costs in graphics. Half of the systems we considered for this chart use graphics chip sets integrated onto the motherboard--typically Intel's 845G chips with its Extreme Graphic technology. Unlike AGP graphics boards, Intel's graphics chips use some of your PC's main memory, saving the expense of faster, pricier dedicated graphics RAM. That's fine for common graphics-oriented activities, such as photo editing, Web surfing, or playing DVD movies on your PC, but it's insufficient for higher-end gaming. Only the ABS Sensation 1300, which had a dedicated graphics card, survived our gaming tests (Unreal Tournament 2003 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein) intact, earning an overall gaming score of Fair.

The FreewayTech and the Compaq Evo D310 Microtower, along with all of the systems using integrated graphics, struggled through both games, turning in excruciatingly slow frame rates--essentially making the games unplayable--and earning a score of Poor. On the Microtel Sysmar151, Return to Castle Wolfenstein was reduced to the speed of a slide show.

Some, but not all, budget systems with integrated graphics also have an open AGP slot, permitting you to upgrade to a faster graphics card; exceptions in the group we tested included the Dell Dimension 2350 and the Gateway 300X.

Processors and graphics aren't the only components that vendors will skimp on to achieve low prices. For example, only two systems--the ABS and the Gateway--came with even a 60GB hard drive; by contrast, five of the seven value systems on our standard chart ship with 80GB or larger hard drives. And two systems--the Compaq and the Microtel--came bundled with 15-inch monitors (though it's worth noting that the Sys Technology TaskMaster 1800+, which just missed the chart, had a 19-inch CRT).

You might also feel (or hear) the pinch of an under-$900 PC in sound quality. The systems that included speakers had only 2.1-channel speaker sets. Other contenders, such as the Compaq and the Gateway, relied on the monitor's built-in speakers; but those can't handle bass notes and aren't suitable for much beyond a voice chat or listening to streaming newscasts from the Web.

Expansion options are another common limitation of budget PCs. Vendors often use case designs with fewer drive bays for adding extra hard drives or removable-media drives, and fewer slots for adding PCI cards or memory. (See this Tech Trend graphic for more.)

The bottom line about rock-bottom systems: While many of these PCs will do fine for general tasks, don't leap without looking. It might pay to buy a beefier PC up front, rather than upgrade later.