What happens when six hundred free greenbacks collides with an abundance of cheap hardware? You get Icrontic’s $600 stimulus check PC. While you could busy your wallet with responsible tasks like bill paying or shed building, the dog days of summer call for reckless financial abandonment and an appreciation for the precipitous decline in the cost of swank components. Besides, it’s what The Man wants you to do! Don’t just do it for yourself, step up and do it for your country.

You know that at Icrontic we like to do it right. That means we’ve done the legwork and you can do the buying. If you’re prepared to do that, here’s what you get for a cool $600 and why we chose it:

Motherboard – DFI BloodIron

Why it’s good: Despite even more recent chipsets, the P35 is a time-tested powerhouse of overclocking prowess. Couple this mastery with a no-frills/all-thrills board like the ascetic BloodIron and you’ll have an overclocking festival reminiscent of ABIT’s beloved NF7-S 2.0. Of course, this may have something to do with DFI sniping the NF7-S 2.0’s lead engineer a few years back. We promise that you’ll love this motherboard because it stands head and shoulders above anything else in its price range.

How you can do better: This board has a lot to offer an overclocker but it isn’t all that and a bag of donuts. If you’re looking for more advanced features like solid caps, 8-phase power, and an abundance of extras, you should turn elsewhere. Reasonable choices include Asus’ P5K-E, the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 and the DFI LanParty DK P35-T2R/S.

Processor – Intel Core 2 Duo E7200

Why it’s good: Core 2 Duo is Intel’s best product in a very long time. Since its 2006 introduction, Intel has held the crown for speed, heat, and efficiency. Not content with standing still, Intel continues to step up their game with the release of the 45nm Penryn architecture. With heat output reductions and speed increases of up to 20%, it seemed like a no-brainer to cram a Penryn-based dual core into the stimulus PC.

How you can do better: From the chip we picked, it’s more speed (a faster Core 2 Duo) or more cores (Core 2 Quad). If you’re particularly fond of content creation and the manipulation of multimedia, a Core 2 Quad Q6600 will double your cores and tack on about $80 to the total. If you’re feeling especially rich, the cooler-running Penryn-based quad cores will run you an extra $140 bones over our baseline.

Memory – G.SKILL PC2-6400

Why it’s good: We’re pumped to finally bring 4GB of delicious DRAM to our ultimate budget rig. G.SKILL is a solid company with a proven track record of reliability and they seal the deal with a lifetime warranty. We’d like to think that this memory overclocks just as well as the OCZ memory we’re fondly parting ways with, but the 6/6/6 timings on these sticks tell us nyet.

How you can do better: What. PC2-8000? 8GB? Get outta here.

Video – NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT

Why it’s good: NVIDIA held the price/performance crown for years with their award-winning 8800GT, and that makes it the perfect solution for our little pet project. Unfortunately, it’s just a shade more expensive than our rig can bear. While previous iterations of our budget box rocked the 8800GT to the tune of 5-7% superior performance, the new GPU in town is backed by an additional 2GB of memory. We’re pretty sure that will calm the waters.

How you can do better: From here, you’re on the road to a better video card. Today’s GPUs are more inexpensive than ever and have cultivated a gluttony of fast and cheap video cards. Luminaries like GeForce 8800GT 512MB, Radeon 4850 and GeForce 260 put more at our fingertips with more in our wallets than ever before.

Power Supply – Corsair CMPSU-450VX

Why it’s good: The VX-series of power supplies is getting rave reviews all over the web for the quality of its power output and the quality of its construction. While 450w doesn’t seem like much with today’s 1kW monsters, be assured that it’s more than enough to power our rig with juice to spare.

How you can do better: This depends on your fancy and aspirations. If you’re a fan of modular cables, there are greener pastures to be had on this front. If you’re a soul looking for an overclocked quad with titanic disk space and an array of video cards that could re-render Jar-Jar out of Star Wars, you might want a bigger power supply. Jumps in wattage with this quality could exorcise up to half the price of this machine from your wallet.

Hard Drive – Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3808

Why it’s good: Seagate is a respected brand and the Barracuda is a respected product line. This hard drive won’t win any races to the finish line, but it won’t hurtle towards the checkered flag a miserable wreck of bits and bytes either. In fact, we chose the drive for its cost to size ratio and its long-standing reliability. Sometimes it pays to respect ol’ faithful.

How you can do better: Our hard drive’s 80GB capacity parties like it’s 1999. We know it hurts. Price scales with capacity, so be prepared to shell out the bucks for the bigger, better deal. If load times are your game, the prestigious Raptor 10K series from Western Digital will hit your wallet like the fist of an angry god. Relatively speaking, of course.

Optical – Optiarc AD-7200A

Why it’s good: The optical writer market has become so homogenous that it’s become a great mass of black-bezeled beauties that all service the same way. Coasters? Bum drives? Forget about it. Optiarc is a decent OEM company that makes decent products. A burner is a burner these days, and we picked the first one from a brand that didn’t suck.

How you can do better: Blu-Ray? Ack. Thbbpt!

Case – Antec 300

Why it’s good: Once upon a time, there was a swank case known as the Antec 900. Receiving rave reviews all over the internet for her knockout combination of beauty and prowess, she was the toast of the town. But she was too expensive for our low-town box… So we hooked it up with her little sister. Zing! The Antec 300 packs all the punch of the big sibling at half the price. I shouldn’t even have to explain how sweet the 300 is.

How you can do better: Bigger? Bigger’s better, right? The Antec 900 can spice up your nights. Don’t ask us about other cases.

The Aftermath

And the total for this little beauty clocks in at a svelte $596.92. If you fudge the cost of shipping like all good enthusiasts do, that will leave you room to torture yourself with a cheap beer as you wile away the hours.

Sometimes the good government taketh, sometimes they giveth. Capitalize on a rare opportunity and do the Right Thing™.

Correction (7/5/08): The original run of this article indicated that Intel CPUs on a 45nm architecture (Wolfdale and Yorkfield) were inspired by the Nehalem. This is obviously incorrect, and has since been updated to read Penryn.

Update (7/15/08): The original run of this article included an 8800GT 256MB for $99.99 to deliver video performance. An astute reader noted that the card is no longer available. We have exchanged the GeForce for AMD’s fantastic Radeon HD 3850 at a similar price and performance threshold.

Update (8/29/08): Our GPU choice once again returns to the 8800GT, but this time we’re rocking the fully-featured 512MB model. Three cheers for progress!

Update (10/6/08): We stiffed you by bailing on the 8800GT and cutting the drive size by 40GB, but we hope the hot case and the introduction of a 4GB memory kit will help you forgive us.