Workstation

$350 AM2

Part	Model	Price	Case
CPU	AMD Sempron 3000+	40
Motherboard	Gigabyte M61VME-S2	65
RAM	1GB Kingston DDR2-667	74
Hard Drive	80GB SATA HDD	55
Optical Drive	16x Pioneer DVR-111D	39
Graphics Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Sound Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Case	Foxconn TSAA805	49
Power Supply	Included with Case	-
Cooling	-	-
Additional	-	-
Total Cost	-	322 + Postage

Some people are on a limited budget, and want a nice basic desktop for Internet use and the like. This machine should be fine for basic tasks. This system, a cheap keyboard/mouse, a copy of Vista Basic or XP Home and a secondhand 17" CRT would provide a nice basic machine for just over $500.

$500 AM2

Part	Model	Price	Case
CPU	AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ EE	89
Motherboard	Asus M2NPV-MX	88
RAM	1GB Kingston DDR2-667	74
Hard Drive	250GB Samsung SP2504C	88
Optical Drive	16x Pioneer DVR-111D	39
Graphics Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Sound Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Case	Foxconn TSAA805	49
Power Supply	430W Coolermaster Extreme Power	48
Cooling	-	-
Additional	-	-
Total Cost	-	475 + Postage

This is a fairly good base system. Whilst primarily a 'work machine', you could possibly do some light gaming due to the onboard GeForce 6150 on the M2NPV-MX . It also features 1GB of RAM which is sufficient to run just about anything except for intense games xD. The case isn't too bad, its cheap but not sore on the eyes. You can have a look at it by clicking on the link.

With the recent AMD price drops, it has become worthwhile to include a dual-core CPU in this system. It could use 2GB of RAM, though.

$750 Core 2 Duo, Workstation

Part	Model	Price	Case
CPU	Core 2 Duo E6320	219
Motherboard	ASRock ConRoe945G-DVI	109
RAM	2GB G.Skill F2-5400PHU2-2GBNT	135
Hard Drive	250GB Samsung SP2504C	88
Optical Drive	16x Pioneer DVR-111D	39
Graphics Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Sound Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Case	Foxconn TSAA805	49
Power Supply	430W Coolermaster Extreme Power	48
Cooling	-	-
Additional	-	-
Total Cost	-	687 + Postage

With a Core 2 Duo CPU and 2GB of RAM, this machine is a very quick workstation.

$1000 Core 2 Duo, Entry-Level CAD Machine

Part	Model	Price	Case
CPU	Core 2 Duo E6320	219
Motherboard	ASRock ConRoe945G-DVI	109
RAM	2GB A-DATA DDR2-667	150
Hard Drive	250GB Samsung SP2504C	88
Optical Drive	16x Pioneer DVR-111D	39
Graphics Card	Quadro FX 350	275
Sound Card	Onboard from motherboard	-
Case	Foxconn TSAA805	49
Power Supply	430W Coolermaster Extreme Power	48
Cooling	-	-
Additional	-	-
Total Cost	-	973 + Postage