Top 10 Desktop PCs for Those on a Limited Budget

A computer has become a necessary item to own as much as your refrigerator and hot water heater. It is very difficult to live without a computer in today's modern society. Computers are used to pay bills, to send and receive emails, for word processing, printing, watching stocks go down, checking how high gold and silver has risen, as a replacement of going to the library, and much more. With forty million people on food stamps and unknown numbers unemployed, a low cost computer is all they can afford. None of these have a monitor which is normal in today's market. I have listed the top 10 desktop PCs for those than have very little in their budget to spend.

Acer Aspire X3300

Great little desktop with a terabyte hard drive and an AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core Desktop Processor with 4GB PC3-10600 DDR3 Memory. It has all the modern conveniences as far as DVD burning, ports and video you will need. Software includes Windows 7 Home Premium and McAfee Security Center. This desktop pc is a value at $500 and a lot of power for the money but don't expect any 3d support and it's power supply is small and should be upgraded when you have the funds. It runs a little to hot since it has no fan so I would do something with that when you can.

eMachines ET1810-01

You can buy this budget desktop PC at Amazon.com for around $280. It has an Intel Celeron processor and Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 OS. You get a one year warranty and all the standard peripherals along with 2GB of memory which can be upgraded to 4GB. The 160 GB hard drive is too small but a larger one can be installed later if you need it. I have installed and used a lot of these and can tell you, first hand, eMachines have increased in quality and reliability over the last several years. This computer is truly a bargain for the price.

Visionman VBBI-1PCC10

For those that want a budget desktop PC to use for Gaming this bare bones computer is the one. With a PC Chips P55G Motherboard it comes with no operating system, hard drive or DVD, you have to install your own, but besides that it is ready to go. It has high end video using nVidia 7050/610i graphics and a wireless card. It includes 4GB of memory and an Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5Ghz Processor with a 400 W power supply. Hard to beat it for only $400.

Dell Inspiron 580 Budget Desktop PC

I am usually reluctant to recommend any Dell PC due to their less than desirable tech support, but they have improved somewhat in that area in the last several years. To Dell's credit their computers do hold up well over time and tech support is normally not needed. With the newer Intel Pentium G6950 Dual Core Processor, 4 GB memory, and a 320 GB SATA hard drive this unit is hard to beat for less than $500. This computer will perform for years with the latest technology, plenty of upgrade potential and Windows 7 Home Premium.

Gateway DX4831-01U PT.GAJ02.037 Desktop PC

If $550 is within your budget than this Gateway Desktop PC is one your should consider. The main issue I have had with Gateway is finding older drivers on their web site but if you make sure you have them available then that should be no problem. This is a powerful computer with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit, 6 GB of memory, Core i3 530 2.93 GHz and 1TB hard drive. It has full media reading ability and 7.1 audio along with a 300 W power supply. Everything you would want in a multimedia desktop PC at a budget price.

HP Pavilion a6010n

HP is my favorite computer manufacturer. HP has been in the electronics industry longer than any other PC company except for IBM. The best thing about HP is it employs real engineers. They have made very high end electronics for many years and their consumer electronics carries on the same tradition. No one in the industry has better tech support, on line or on the phone. HP Pavilions have been around for a long time and this one is a good value for around $330. It has the DVD LightScribe technology that they invented with Windows XP Media Center Edition and Windows Vista Home Edition. The specs on this unit are quite low with a 1.8 GHz processor, 1.0 GB RAM and a 320 GB Hard Drive but it can be used as is and upgraded when you can afford it. It has all the connections you expect and carries a one year warranty. Another thing I like about the HP is the ability wipe out the Windows OS and easily load on a free Linux distro with no problems. I have done this to all my Home PCs and am writing this article on one of them.

ASUS EB1012-B0016

ASUS has made some of the best motherboards on the market for many years. The quality of workmanship and of the components is very high. The ASUS Eee Box EB1012 is a outstanding unit at a budget price of $420. This PC contains a Intel Atom N330 1.6GHz Dual Core processor with 2GB Memory and a 160 GB hard drive. Low spec but this little wireless enabled device using a 40W adapter and is loaded with Windows XP Professional. A Win 7 Pro CD is included making this a great choice for companies on a budget.

MSI Wind Nettop CS120

Similar to the ASUS is the MSI Wind Nettop having an Intel Atom 230 1.6GHz processor and 1GB DDR2 RAM 160GB HD with Windows XP Home edition loaded. You get a very quite desktop with Intel GMA 950 graphics and a 35 W power adapter with built in wireless for just $310. The power requirements will also save you some money if you are on a budget. A very capable machine if your PC requirements are low.

Lenovo ThinkCentre M58e

For $600 you can get this Lenovo ThinkCentre M58e and have a Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHz processor with 3GB RAM and a 320GB HD loaded with Windows XP Professional. This is tops for a company desktop PC or performs just as well at home. The power supply is a little low at 280 W but with all the integration it is adequate. IBM sold this division to Lenovo but you are getting the same quality.

Compaq CQ5500F Desktop PC

I never thought much of Compaq computers and stayed away from buying them until HP bought the company. Compaq computers were known to be built solid but had a problem with their proprietary hardware when it came to LAN connectivity and addressing back in the days of 386's. A Compaq desktop PC isn't what it use to be. HP just uses the name on their HP units since Compaq had such a wide following in the past. You want to talk about value this is it. Look at what you get for only $300: A Sempron 140 2.70GHz processor and 2GB RAM with a 500GB HD and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS! It contains a SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technology drive, NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE integrated graphics, USB and sound ports on the front and rear, Express x16 and x1 slots, and many more features that will give you all you need for most any application you have in mind, all with the famous one year HP warranty.

I started working on and with computers years before Microsoft existed. I have seen the complete evolution of PCs from their beginning until today, using all versions of DOS and Windows. Unix, and later Linux, has always been my operating system of choice but much of my money has been made working on Microsoft products that were behaving badly. So I know, first hand, what hardware does well and the hardware that is not so good. The top 10 desktop PCs I suggested is from real life personal experience and will give you great service without breaking your budget.

Sources: personal experience