Who doesn't like a bargain? We know we do. That's why we like reviewing budget PCs. Poring over spec sheets and comparing prices to find the best deal excites us. We tend to draw a line at $500 or above, because most $300 and $400 desktops show their obsolescence very quickly. For this exercise, we'll consider everything below $700, not including a monitor.

Look for a strong foundation in a budget PC. Specific needs vary among users, but to maintain a smooth Windows XP experience and get your money's worth, we recommend at least 1GB of system memory and a dual-core processor. With 1GB of memory, the system should be able to run any mainstream application without dragging its performance to a crawl. It should also let you run Windows Vista, although you might have to turn off the fancy visuals. And we're going dual core here because you can get it. More and more apps, as well as both Windows XP and Windows Vista themselves can take advantage of a dual-core CPU, and many new and current programs can as well. You won't necessarily find a fast processor in this price range, but you should be able to find a capable one. Lastly, we'll make an exception for Apple Mac Minis here, since they can get by in the Mac OS with 512MB, and by now they all come with dual-core chips.

Shopping at retail
Those specs in mind, we stopped by two Best Buys and one Circuit City in Manhattan. The majority of systems in both stores were priced below $1,000, and many were between $350 and $700. We saw 14 desktops at one Best Buy and 25 at the other. On its Web site, Best Buy lists 35 desktops. Similarly, the Circuit City we visited had 13 models on display, but its Web site lists 34 systems. The lesson here is that in-store selection varies by location, and you'll find the most options on retailers' Web sites.

Searching on Best Buy's Web site, we found 13 PCs and one Mac Mini for less than $700. Of the 13 Windows PCs, 8 came with 1GB of memory. Interestingly, that cuts out every system under $500.

Dual-core processors are abundant at this price point, so that's taken care of. Also, all of the Windows PCs come with Windows Media Center Edition 2005, which not only means you get handy digital media management software, but the system should come with a free upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium when it ships in January. That complicates things. Vista Home Premium includes the cool Aero visual effects, but none of these PCs comes with a discrete 3D graphics card, which means its performance will suffer. Doubling the memory to 2GB might help, but the only system in this price range with 2GB of memory is the Gateway GT5228, and it is right at the top of our self-imposed budget at $699.99.

We're going to go out on another limb here. If you have Windows Vista in mind, and you have a limited budget, wait. We have a feeling that once Vista hits, the PC vendors will put together faster systems for less. This might mean waiting until March 2007, but that's our hunch. If you have Windows Vista in your sights but you need to buy a cheap PC now, the good news is that most of these systems have upgrade room, and you can always add parts after the fact. That leads us to our favorite offering from Best Buy: the Gateway GT5220 for $579.99. It has a DVD burner, a 250GB hard drive, an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPU, and 1GB of system memory. And while it has an integrated graphics chip from Nvidia, there's also room for an x16 PCI Express graphics card if you want to add one later. That's a good deal.

Circuit City has as wide a selection of PCs as Best Buy, although Circuit City's Web site is loaded with rebates, Web-only specials, and sale prices where it won't tell you the price until you add a system to the shopping cart. All of that makes it hard and a bit annoying to replicate the real-life shopping experience. Not counting rebates or the Web-only deals, we found 12 PCs and a Mac Mini. Of those, only 5 PCs had the requisite 1GB of system memory and a dual-core CPU. We didn't find one that had 2GB of RAM.

HP Compaq and Acer are the main competitors here, along with Apple's $599 Mac Mini. We'll cut Apple loose here. We did the same at Best Buy. The reason? It looks great, and people love their Macs, but the Mini has a serious lack of storage space with only a 60GB drive. Considering that Apple sells an 80GB iPod for $349, we don't think the Mac Mini is the best choice if you're looking to get the most computer for your buck.

Of the remaining PCs, the $499 Acer ST180-ED380M is the best choice. It's basically the same system as the Gateway GT5220 above, except that it's $80 less expensive. That makes it our overall in-store pick as well.

Model	Acer ST180-ED380M
Price	$499
CPU	2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Chipset	Nvidia Nforce 4
Memory	1GB of PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz)
Hard drive	250GB Serial ATA hard drive (7,200rpm)
Graphics	Integrated Nvidia GeForce 6150LE graphics
Audio	Integrated 7.1 channel audio
Optical drive	16X double-layer DVD burner
Media card reader	Yes
Networking	10/100 Ethernet
OS	Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Software	Acer Empowering Technology Norton AntiVirus 2006 Adobe Reader 7.0 CyberLink PowerDVD NTI CD-Maker Gold
Monitor/speakers	None
Warranty	One year

Shopping online
We were surprised to find that the two companies that dominate the retail shelves, Gateway and HP, don't do nearly as well in stores as they do online. Gateway itself doesn't even sell a system in our price range online, and eMachines (Gateway's budget brand) doesn't sell systems over the Internet. HP, meanwhile, does sell PCs online, but we found shopping on its Web site a confusing experience. We checked in with a few lesser known manufacturers as well, but in the end, you probably won't be surprised by who gets the nod.

Cyberpower: There are some great deals to be found here, but most budget buyers aren't likely to uncover them. If you're a first-time PC buyer, Cyberpower's Web site presents such a dizzying selection of configuration options that it's completely unusable. You can choose the case, the power supply, even the CPU cooling fan. No casual user wants to deal with that many variables. But we know for a fact that you can find a budget PC here at a price that's tough to top. Cyberpower's Back to School 2006 model is one of the leading budget PCs we've seen this year, and it allowed us to make the argument to Dell, HP, and others that a budget PC should have a dual-core CPU in it. Too bad Cyberpower's Web site is such a mess. We'll concede that a savvy computer user looking for a budget PC would be able to navigate this site and build a competitive system. But if Cyberpower wants to attract a larger audience, it has to make it easier for people to find one of its good deals without jumping through so many daunting configuration hoops.

Dell: Dell's higher-end XPS line is too expensive for our price limit, so we're Dimension-bound here. We're not fans of the Dimension C521, either, so we'll look to the Intel-based E520 and the AMD-powered E521 (link goes to a review with a different config than listed below). We're wary of the Dimension E520, because the E521's Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is a much better CPU than the E520's slower Pentium D 805 chip, and it costs $30 more for an otherwise identical PC. But we were pleased to find that for $609, you can get a Dimension E521 with 1GB of memory, a DVD burner, a 250GB hard drive, and a 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro graphics card. That should handle Windows Vista and its cool visual effects with no trouble.

Model	Dell Dimension E521
Price	$599
CPU	2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Chipset	Nvidia Nforce 4
Memory	1GB of PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz)
Hard drive	250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7,200rpm)
Graphics	256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
Audio	Integrated 7.1 channel audio
Optical drive	16X double-layer DVD burner
Media card reader	Yes
Networking	10/100 Ethernet
OS	Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Software	Microsoft Works 8, Corel and Yahoo trial pack
Monitor/speakers	None
Warranty	One year

Gateway: To build a Gateway DX420B that's comparable to either the Dimension E521 or the Acer desktop we found at Circuit City, you'd have to pay $783.99. There are some good deals to be found at retail with Gateway, but its online selection for budget PCs needs some work.

HP: HP has a few "ready to ship" models on its Web site that look competitive, especially the $649 (before rebate) Pavilion Media Center a1610n PC. It doesn't have a video card, though, so it's not as good as the Dimension E521. HP's lone online Compaq Presario is also ready to ship, and it's in the same boat as the Pavilion a1610n; not bad, but the Acer at Circuit City beats its price, and the Dimension E521 beats it because it has a 3D card.

For HP's custom-configuration systems, we find HP's Web site only slightly less irritating than Cyberpower's. HP offers five different series of Pavilion PCs, all of which start at less than $1,000. What's worse, each of those series has a subseries, dividing them into an AMD-based line, with an e suffix, and an Intel line that ends with a y. What, were a and i taken?

We lined up a Pavilion a1650e to compare with the Dimension E521 and got a price of $860. We tried the same with a Slimline s7600e and got $829. We like the Slimline s7600e as a diminutive home theater-ish PC, but it seems that for true budget systems, HP does better in retail than it does on its Web site.

Velocity Micro: $1,000 seems to be the sweet spot for Velocity Micro's nongaming PCs. We couldn't configure a competitive system for the $700-and-under price range. The closest we got was about $975.

Our budget pick
One thing we learned in writing this story is that if you're on a budget, you should definitely check the stores before you shop online. Set configurations tend to be cheaper than customizable equivalents. And especially with ever-fluctuating sale prices, rebate offers, and other deals, you could benefit simply from shopping on the right day. Also, holiday shoppers looking for a cheap PC should circle Friday, November 24 on their calendars. Black Friday always brings down price tags. Just remember to wear a helmet.

Although we found some great deals at retail, Dell's Dimension E521 trumps them all. Yes, it's true that that the $519 Acer AST180-ED380M (rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it) would end up nearly identical to the Dell we configured, should you open up the Acer and pop in a $75 graphics card. We imagine that most budget buyers, however, like the fact that Dell will add in that card for you. We also like that you can configure the Dimension E521's other features, as well, and that those options are presented to you in an easy-to-grasp, one-thing-at-a-time format. Finally, Dell has a deal running now where it will ship the system to you for free, eliminating one of retail's main advantages. We've given Dell a hard time on some of its systems lately, but for budget PCs, based purely on specs-for-the-price (in other words, no hands-on time, no performance testing) the Dimension E521 is our budget PC recommendation.