We trust that our advice has equipped you with what you need to know. If you're replacing an older system that has become too slow or setting up a new workspace and need something simple, a budget desktop may be in your future. Check out our recommendations list here for some of our favorites. If you'd like a more traditional tower and can afford the extra cost, consider our top desktop picks or, alternatively, our favorite budget laptops.

If you're remotely interested in upgrading your desktop down the line, traditional tower desktops will do the job, even at this price point. The niche small-form-factor desktops are less friendly to maintenance, but your go-to standard tower will easily welcome additions. In a traditional case, you should expect to be able to remove the side panel and add more storage (like, as mentioned, an additional drive or two) and more memory.

Towers can also allow you to add a discrete graphics card, but be mindful of several factors that may affect this future prospect. For one thing, limitations might be posed by the chassis size or the wattage of the internal power supply. Some budget tower models without video cards have power supplies with output ratings of less than 200 watts. Frustratingly, some manufacturers use proprietary power supply solutions that can't be easily swapped for a higher-wattage unit.

You may be able to open up a case, and it may have the PCI Express x16 slot for a video card, but the power supply might not have the wattage oomph to push it, or the chassis might be cramped (or not designed to industry standard) and allow for the installation only of half-height cards or short-length cards, which would severely limit your upgrade options. It's easy to assume you'll be able to throw a better graphics card in a system after you buy, but you'll often find these limitations, especially in the least expensive models.

Your most likely upgrade options for these systems will be additional storage or memory. As a general rule, though, the smaller the chassis, the fewer your upgrade options, and that can even extend to memory and storage format. Some super-cheap systems use non-upgradable, soldered-down eMMC storage, for example, instead of an M.2 or 2.5-inch SSD. In some compact, inexpensive desktops, the CPU and RAM are not socketed and removable, but are instead integrated into the mainboard.

What's immediately obvious about most of these budget PCs? How they look. Modern components have made the PC performance baseline very solid, even on a $500 tower, versus what it used to be. This allows traditional small- and midsize-tower PCs to thrive in this price range. These remain some of our favorites for the money, as time-tested solutions to home computing.

You'll also see an assortment of (impressively) small boxes, bare boards, micro towers, and even some stick-shaped PCs to choose from. The smallest of these systems measure just a couple of inches tall and only a few more across, while several of our top picks are mini boxes just a few inches tall and wide—and it's hard not to marvel at these systems running full Windows 11. With their small size and dialed-down power, they save you not just money but space, which can be crucial in certain usage situations. If you want to just plug one in out of sight behind a monitor or TV, you'll hardly know it's there.

Despite their compact sizes, our favorite small models still offer a respectable number of ports. The best of these boxes offer plenty of physical connectivity and expansion options, which make them versatile depending on the deployment. If you need to connect displays and peripherals or add storage, there's an option here. The larger towers, of course, provide a more comprehensive complement of ports, including some up-to-the-minute options like USB-C ports.