ALAN DEXTER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, RESPONDS:

You can always find better deals when building to a super- tight budget. There are bundle deals to look out for, sales, second- hand machines, and refurbed parts. The problem as far as the magazine is concerned is that such parts can be one- offs, or particularly hard to find, which means our readers’ experiences can differ significantly. Throw in personal preference, and there’s room for a lot of variance when it comes to a budget system. The point of our builds is often to spark the imagination, with a rough blueprint of one direction you can go. The rest is up to you.

Your recommendations for memory are a case in point, although we’d recommend a pair of 4GB sticks, as opposed to one 8GB, to improve memory throughput, but I’m sure you know that, and are just testing us. Obviously integrated graphics use system memory; what else would they use? For that system, we’d recommend setting the iGPU memory to much lower than 1GB, as it’s not really a gaming machine, so 256MB would be sufficient.

Peripherals are such a personal preference that we don’t tend to cover them in our general builds— we’ve spent $20 on budget options before. I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen a mouse that costs $ 450. As for screens, I’m confused about your preference for 14-inch panels. A 22-inch screen can be had for that much cash. It’s not always the case, but bigger is definitely better here.

Finally, there’s the Windows Home debate. Neutered seems a bit strong. Which parts of Pro do you need for your budget machine: Domain Join Services, BitLocker, Remote Access, Group Policy Editor, or Windows Update for Business? None of those seems essential for a budget machine.