BUYING A BUDGET DESKTOP 101.

So, there’s a look at what $1,500 gets you these days. It’s clear that there’s no single solution for every use case. The form factor is the most obvious differentiating feature. We’ve got an AIO, a NUC and desktops – how’s that for apples and oranges!

What kind of PC you go for strongly depends on what you want to use it for and what kind of experience you want from your PC. If you view your PC as just a means to an end and nothing more, then you’ll probably be looking at something with a strong after-sales focus and a simple setup. Turn it on and you’re away.

You’ll notice that the benchmark results vary widely between the different systems.

In the case of gaming, there’s the Mwave system and then daylight. Apart from gaming, unless you’re running tasks that require real grunt, like rendering or encoding, which benefit from the power of the PCCG’s i7-12700, any of these machines will do typical office productivity and day to day tasks with ease. You can see it in the PCMark Essentials test, which measures a variety of common workloads.

Choosing a desktop system isn’t easy, especially if you’re not the most tech savvy user but now that you’ve got an idea of the different machines that are available, and what they’re capable of, we hope your purchase decision will be a little easier.

"Apart from gaming, unless you’re running tasks that require real grunt, like rendering or encoding, which benefit from the power of the PCCG’s i712700, any of these machines will do typical office productivity and day to day tasks with ease."