We like big explosions, the bigger the better, in fact. We also like smoke effects, water ripples, dappled lighting filtering through jungle canopies and creeping up silently behind people, before murdering them to death with our bare hands. But enough about our weekend pastimes. What we really, really like is the fantastic visuals DX10 gaming offers.
 
If you listen to most people, they will tell you that you need a quad-core, DDR3, triple-SLI setup to play Crysis. The sort of setup that requires you to re-mortgage your house to own. These people are wrong, and we're going to show you why.

Would you believe us if we told you that it's possible to build a DX10 capable rig for well under $400? Well, it's true. Of course you can't connect it to a 22-inch wide screen monitor without the frame rates dropping faster than Paris Hilton's panties, but if you're on that tight a budget, a big monitor is probably the least of your concerns.

Whenever you work to such a tight budget, something has to give and this project will be no exception. We need to prioritize in certain areas, while others can be largely ignored. Yes, a case is important to stop your gear being an untidy heap of electronics on the floor, but really you just need a metal box to screw things onto. Optical drives are dirt cheap, and with memory stick capacities being what they are, hardly anyone burns DVDs, so we only need a DVD ROM. It also means no quad-core and no SLi. But dual-core chips are surprisingly cheap, and we'll see just how well a budget DX10 card performs. Don't forget that if you have any parts available from an existing PC, such as cases and drives, you can reuse them and put the money towards a higher-end CPU or graphics card.

THE CPU

Quad-core might get all the attention, but in all honesty, it literally is a load of hot air. Windows XP was never designed with multiple CPUs in mind and even Vista doesn't take full advantage of multiple cores. Add this to the fact that many games are still not coded for quad-core, then the advantages are limited. Sure, a quad-core CPU will generally run apps faster than a dual-core CPU, but it certainly won't be twice as fast.

Dual-core chips are the norm now, and although Intel has made great strides with the Core2 Duo platform, they are not the cheapest of chips. AMD was, of course, the first to bring us dual-core CPUs, and it has a healthy range of CPUs to choose from. While AMD might be in the process of being mugged down a dark alley by Intel on the performance front, when it comes to the budget-end of the spectrum, things are less clear-cut. In addition, with the release of Phenom, many of AMD's older chips are being slashed in price. A few months ago, it was no contest; Intel would have been the first choice, no matter what your budget. Thankfully, the market never stands still and at this point in time, some AMD chips offer exceedingly good value for money.

If we were to spend around a third of our budget on the CPU, then Intel's dual-core l.8GHz Pentium D E2160, at $l00 would be a good choice. However, for $30 less, you can buy an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 , which runs at 2.3GHz. In performance terms, the AMD chip is slightly ahead of the E2160 in most areas, and consuming only 65W is going to run cooler, as well as use less power. The Athlon also has twice the Li cache of the Pentium, which gives it another advantage. The only area the Athlon will really fall down is in video encoding, but unless you're intending to rip lots of DVDs, it's not particularly a huge issue. Spend another $20 and you can pick up the Athlon 64 X2 4800 , running at 2.5GHz for $90. As all these CPUs are boxed retail products, you don't need to worry about buying a cooler either, as one is supplied.

MOBO

If the CPU is the brain of your PC, then the motherboard is the body, and everyone wants the best body they can get. However, when you spend less than $l20, you aren't going to get the best features. On the other hand, you don't want to go for a $30 board, which will hamper your CPU and graphics card. The $70 mark seems to be a good starting point. As you may have noticed, while Intel tends to keep one socket for some time, AMD changes sockets more often than Jacob Zuma appears in court. So, we want something with a little future proofing, which leaves us with the AM2 socket. There are a couple of decent boards that fit the bill, the Asus M2N- MX SE Plus and the Abit A-N68SV both at $70.

They are both well priced, and should you suddenly find a roll of $100 notes stuffed down the back of the sofa, will take the latest AMD Phenom CPUs. Okay, you don't get SLI, and the chipsets may lack some of the top-end features, but it's what's supported that counts.

Out of the two boards, the Abit A-N68SV has the better chipset and is the one we decided to use. The AM2 socket enables us to use both the older AM2 and newer AM2 chips. The mobo chipset is the nForce 630a, which while not the latest generation, is more than sufficient It supports dual-channel memory (533/667800MHz), 3GB SATA II including RAID 0,1 and 5 and has onboard, 5.1 HD surround sound. As a micro-ATX board, there's only one PCI-e slot for graphics, but there are two PC I slots for any other cards you may want to add. The board does have integrated DirectX 9 graphics, courtesy of the GeForce 7025 chipset, but that's easy enough to turn off in the BIOS. With four USB ports on the back plate, and the option to connect six more, you're not short of connectivity either.