Computer component prices are falling all the time and it is now easy to assemble a high end multi purpose pc just under Rs. 30000. When I say “high end” I don’t mean using the latest or the highest spec components. But rather a machine which can be used for decent gaming, media work and programming applications.

Since this machine is intended for gaming, you need a PCI Express card and that puts atleast an additional Rs. 5000 on the budget. So if gaming is not your passion, you can reduce the budget to Rs. 25000.

CPU - Intel E4600 (Rs. 5000) - Intel E4600 is a decent CPU which has a front bus speed of 800MHz and a processor speed of 2.4GHz.  But there is no virtualization support. If you can spare about Rs. 1000 more you can go for Intel E7200 which I highly recommend. E7200 features VT technology and can support bus speed of 1066Mhz.

Motherboard - Intel DP35DP (Rs. 5500) - Intel DP35DP  (which belongs to the media series) supports upto 8GB of RAM and also supports quad core processors.  Note that there is no built in video and you will require a PCI Express card for display. If you are looking for integrated video try DG31PR in the classic series.

Memory  - 2GB DDR2 800MHz (Rs. 2000) - 2GB of RAM is the minimum you need these days. For an optimum system I would recommend 4GB of RAM.

Graphics Card - XFX GEFORCE 8600 GT 256MB PCI-E DDR3 (Rs. 6000) - XFX 8600 GT is a good graphics for a fair price. The advantage is that you can play almost all games in decent resolution. In future if you get more money, you can easily replace this with 9600GT which costs about Rs. 10000.  XFX 8600 GT supports dual DVI links (DVI to analog adapter is also included) and hence support 2 monitors at the same time.

Hard disk - Seagate 160GB SATA (Rs. 2000) - Personally I think 80GB harddisk is good enough. If you need more space you can buy an additional disk later. But again since the price difference is minimal, I would recommend 160GB disk.  Note that there are different categories of SATA drive which varies in price and performance.

DVD Writer/reader - Sony DVD (Rs. 1500) - Get the original Sony DVD writer which supports both CD and DVD writing.

Keyboard - Logitech Multimedia USB (Rs. 400) - Get a USB keyboard which works!

Mouse -  Logitech Optical USB (Rs. 300) - Get a USB mouse which works!

Computer display - Samsung 19” LCD 920 NW (Rs. 8000) - I have given Samsung just as reference. Explore a couple of different 19″ models before you purchase one. Most good dealers provide a peek at the monitors before you buy it. AOC is another brand which is very cheap especially for higher models (22″). But I am not sure how reliable those monitors are.

Computer cabinet with 450W SMPS (Rs. 1500) - 450W is the minimum you should look for. Again it is good to spend some more money to get a good cabinet.  Also ensure that there is enough fans for heat dissipation.

The total cost of all the above components is over Rs. 30000. But if you are good in bargaining, you may be able to get this config assembled under Rs. 30000! :-)  Wondering what you will use as operating system? Don’t think of spending Rs. 5000 on a Windows Vista. Instead download or get a copy of Ubuntu 8.0.4.  If you still require a Windows OS, go for Windows XP Professional with SP3.

Following list will give you an idea as to what you can do with this computer.

• You can play Doom3 at 1280 resolution with anti-aliasing turned on. At around 60fps gameplay is smooth.
• You can develop Web applications using Eclipse or Netbeans IDE and at the same time run a MySQL server on the machine.
• You can play a divx/xvid video.  You can also encode a video into divx.