One of the most significant changes that have taken place, over the last couple of years has been the gradual erosion of the single-core processor market by dual-cores. AMD and Intel have been waging a price war against each other on this front and this has lead to a situation where single core processors are now just literally 200-300 rupees cheaper than their dual-core counterparts. This is of course great news for consumers, as it means that it is now possible to assemble a dual-core powered multi-media ready desktop for as low as Rs. 25,000! Please note that since this is just a basic Rs. 5,000 upgrade from our popular Rs. 20,000 machine, many of our peripherals and components remain the same.

Here is our choice of components for the ideal entry-level dual-core machine

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (Rs. 4,500)

While searching for the ideal processor for our machine, we considered both solutions from Intel and AMD. Though Intel has significantly lowered its prices and introduced the Intel 945 GZ chipset, we find that the AMD 4400 X2 processor/AMD 690G chipset combination offers far better VFM.

This is a mid-rung processor that offers a clock speed of 2.3 GHZ, 512K of L2 cache and in an important development has been made on a 65nm die process. This results in decreased power requirement, keeps the processor running significantly cooler and with its clock speed actually offers the performance of the Intel E6300 which costs Rs. 3,000 more.

Motherboard: Asus M2A -VM (Rs. 4,500)

Keeping in mind our budget, we had to choose our motherboard very carefully. Our first choice was the Asus M2NPV-VM board which has been featured in previous roundups. However, while we were making enquires in the market about the availability of the product, we found that most major dealers simply said that it was not available. The product seems to have just disappeared. This forced us to reevaluate our choice. Our second choice therefore and our choice for this machine was another Asus board – the Asus M2A VM.

The M2A VM is a newly launched product and is based on the AMD690G chipset. It is the first product to come out of the ATI/AMD stable, since the merger occurred. This new chipset is an impressive effort and supports the entire range of currently available AMD processors. Apart from that it also has support for DDR2 800, offers dual video connectivity options (DVI and D-Sub) with the help of the Radeon X1250 graphics engine. The presence of both DVI and D-Sub is great as it allows you to connect both LCD and CRT monitors. The board also offers a Hi-Definition 5.1 channel audio chip the Realtek ALC883 codec, which offers excellent music playback capability. The board also features a single PCIe slot, which is perfect for people looking to upgrade to a dedicated graphics solution for gaming. For its expansion options, the board offers an impressive 10 USB slots and 1 Firewire.

Overall with its support for current generation AMD processors, onboard graphics and sound and a vast array of peripheral connectivity the Asus M2A VM forms the perfect foundation to build our PC on.

RAM: Kingston DDR2 667 MHz (Rs. 2,500)

RAM prices have recently been going south and it's time take advantage of this. 1 GB of system memory is absolutely vital for system operations nowadays with the increased size and requirements of software. Kingston really needs no introduction. They have been making quality RAM sticks for a long time. Now available at a price of Rs. 2,500 with a 5 yr warranty, it’s the perfect product for our machine.