Lets set the stage. You are a young, broke PC gamer who just wants to play some of the latest games from the late 2000s and into the early 2010s. Your current rig is just a slow old P4 box that barely manages to browse the web. Let alone playing games!
Enter the cheap computer challenge. For under $100USD, I was able to pull together a dated but otherwise still useful machine for those just starting out.
Tech Ambrosia is the challenge host, and they have made an announcement video that goes along with it. The video in question can be found below as part of the challenge.
The rules
What is the good of a challenge without the rules?
Build a PC for less than $100! Complete challenges for points! Show off the most ridiculous thing it can do!
Rules
– Tag your post or video with #CheapPCChallenge2022
– $100 budget total for: CPU, GPU, RAM, Motherboard, Power Supply, CPU Heatsink, and Boot Drive
– Show your purchase receipts to qualify
– Case, Keyboard, Monitor, Mouse, Speakers / Headphones, Misc Cables, and the OS are not included in the $100 budget
– Shipping is not counted in the $100 budget
– Post your build by December 31, 2022Challenges
– Run Unigine Sanctuary at default settings, 1080p
– Run Cinebench R11.5 Single and Multicore CPU benchmarks
– Time how long it takes to open this 100-page Google Doc (average of 3 runs)Scoring
– Unigine Sanctuary: Benchmark Score ÷ 10
– Cinebench: (Single Core + Multi Core) × 10
– Google Docs: 60 – (seconds it takes to completely load the document)
– Price: +1 point for each dollar under $100. -5 points for each dollar OVER $100
Having clarified with Tech Ambrosia, the challenge owner, the currency is in USD, after conversions from local currencies. In my case, this means I am allowed a budget of 150AUD, as this translates to the 100USD budget. To be exact, this is 154.43AUD, as of November 8th.
Also, shipping is not included in the challenge. This was presumably to allow for items to come abroad, should it be needed.
My build of choice
For the challenge, I chose to go down the OEM route. Why, you may ask? Because that is where the best deals can often be had. With the limitations of such a build kept in mind (no overclocking support, often janky power solutions and non standard form factors), a reasonably balanced build can be achieved.
The market in Australia is quite tight, being in a regional area away from the capital cities meant my options were rather limited. Deals are hard to come by, let alone for the budget. Thankfully, as my real budget was 150AUD, it did allow for me to stretch my legs somewhat in the computer wasteland.
| Part | Price AUD | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| CPU Intel Core i5 2400 |
$15.00 | A 4 core 4 threaded CPU, this 2nd gen i5 may be a bit slow for most. But where it makes up for the lack of speed is in versatility, thanks to the widespread support on LGA 1155. |
| Motherboard DELL MIH61R (Inspiron 620) |
$30.50 | The backbone of the whole build. This Dell motherboard is one of the last to feature full compatibility with the ATX standard. As a result, it was a no-brainer thanks to the support. I actually owned a Dell Inspiron 620 back in the day as my first computer, and had much fun upgrading it to run then-modern games. |
| CPU Heatsink Dark Player LP fan |
$14.95 | What’s worse than the stock Intel cooler? This random no name heatsink of course. As it turned out during testing, this struggled to keep the i5 cool. I’d hate to try it on an i7… |
| Graphics card Gigabyte Windforce AMD Radeon HD 7850 1GB |
$38.00 | I likely could have done better here than this card, thanks to the lack of driver support from AMD and the small VRAM on offer. However, again this card does have a lot of driver support for many, many different operating systems, which may push it over the line. |
| Memory 2x 2GB DDR3-1333mhz |
$9.95 | Yep, nothing special. Just OEM sticks of RAM. Probably what the Dell board had in it when it was sold. I chose the two sticks to try and extract the best memory performance from the i5, thanks to the dual channel support. |
| Boot drive 128GB Intel SSD |
$16.90 | Again, nothing super special. I did oogle over these early SSDs as I was looking to upgrade the Dell I had. |
| Power Supply beQuiet! 500w |
$29.00 | An oldie, but a goodie as far as I can tell. For what we’re doing here, all that is needed is just a 500w. |
| Case Some random MSY thing |
Free! | This was in my storage. Grabbed it just because it fits. Feels cheap and rather crap, so I’ll probably burn it later. |
| BD-ROM LG Blu-Ray drive |
Free! | This was in my storage too. I just used it to fill in the hole at the top of the case. |
For the operating system, I chose to use Windows 7. Why you may ask? Well, with the low amount of RAM, we need every bit of boost we can get. Admittedly, Windows 8.1 may have been a better choice, but 7 was what I had on hand also. Plus its still kind of compatible with things, so its not the end of the world.
The rules of the challenge also state that we need to give our purchase history, to know we’re not bluffing it and just buying cheap computers off our mates for beer. Here you go.
And of course, the final-ish result.
With the build laid out, lets get to benchmarking it!
The Benchmarks
As per the rules, the following needs to be ran:
– Unigine Heaven benchmark (default settings, 1080p res)
– Cinebench R11.5 (both single core and multicore runs)
– Google Doc
Lets get straight into it.
1. Unigine Heaven
Heaven is an older benchmark from 2007, but it still can be a challenge for systems with integrated graphics only. As it runs on DX9, it can run on anything from Windows XP and up. Just needs a fully compatible DX9 compatible GPU, thats all (sorry Intel ARC, you can’t run this good benchmark).
With a score of 6115, this is actually quite a respectable score with this era of hardware. Performance was smooth and no issues were seen in the run.
2. Cinebench R11.5
Again, an older benchmark. Cinebench R11 is quite useful in determining a system’s memory and CPU performance, and also the OpenGL perf to a lesser extent.
In the standard multicore test, the i5 2400 scores 5.10, a reasonable and average score from the time.
The single core test scores 1.36, a ratio of 3.76 times.
During this test, I took note of the thermal performance of the low profile cooler I had bought for this system. Needless to say, the pictures say a thousand words. The cooler allowed the CPU to hit 70c, which isn’t all that great. Considering that the original Dell stock cooler managed to keep the same i5 at 62c at full load, you are better off finding a stock cooler for such a system, should you build it yourself.
3. Google Doc
This may have been a bit more of an internet speed test rather than the true power of a system, but its here so I’ve gotta do it 🙂
Using the latest version of Chrome that was available for Windows 7, opening this GDoc took 7 seconds, from hitting Paste and Go to the page completing loading.
Results
The official score is in. I scored 729.18 points, which is quite a decent score.
So… how did it go?
Overall, I’m quite happy with the build as a whole. Surely, if I had spent more time hunting bargains, I could have perhaps gotten a first gen AMD Ryzen system, but that wouldn’t have had the one party trick this system has, which is full compatibilty with Windows XP!
Yes, I am not kidding, you can go and install Windows XP proper on this system and have everything work. That alone may actually be of some use for those out there that need XP for compatibility reasons.
For gaming in the modern realm however, it could be better. I did try the latest version of Minecraft on this system and was greeted with a stuttery slow mess, which is probably thanks to the 4GB RAM installed in this system. I’m sure the 1GB VRAM on the graphics card isn’t helping either. But for older games such as Half Life 2, Garry’s Mod and other Source engine games, as well as Halo CE and Quake 3, this system rocks.
For now, peace
#CheapPCChallenge2022