DESK TOP PCs FROM £ 399 TO £1,499
Best buys for home, office and gaming
W e suspect this question sounds familiar: “I’d like to buy a new PC. What do you recommend?” It’s hard not to respond with a grunt of despair because the answer depends on so many factors. Are they looking for a workhorse, a gaming PC or something in the middle? And most of all, what’s their budget? No, the real one.
Because budget dictates everything: if you have less than £500 to spend, your options are severely limited. Of the ten systems in this month’s group test, three fall below that price and all display obvious signs of compromise. We don’t mean ignore these PCs, because they’re fast enough to tick the “daily workhorse” category; they may well be the best choice.
Loosen the purse strings, however, and options expand in a most gratifying way. Gaming is now within reach, with dedicated cards from Nvidia on offer – although if you can’t stretch beyond £1,000 then expect to be stuck with last year’s technology.
Head into four figures and things get very interesting indeed. You can now afford the latest RTX 3000 series graphics cards, high-end processors and luxurious cases. These are PCs that should keep going for years.
So what to say to your friend? Perhaps the simplest thing to do is slip this copy of PC Pro into your bag so that it’s always to hand. Whilst the exact machines we review may go off sale over time, the direct line between price and performance, between budget and quality, are timeless.