PC Specialist Aurora-r

Slot machine

Affordable PC with room for upgrades

DESKTOP PC | £499 from PC Specialist www.snipca.com/38777

Fast at running Windows and office software, with plenty of slots for upgrades

Although it comes in a large, full-sized tower case, PC Specialist’s Aurora-r is surprisingly light. The chassis is made of thin metal and, as you’d expect from the affordable price, it isn’t overstuffed with components. This might leave you concerned that you’re buying a big metal case of fresh air, but don’t worry – the benefit of the space inside is that there’s plenty of room for upgrades in the future.

The PC is built around Intel’s Core i5-11400 processor, an 11th-generation model that offers plenty of single- core speed. It’s backed up with 8GB of RAM, supplied in a single memory module. The Asus Prime B560-plus motherboard has three RAM slots in total, so two are spare and accessible for adding more memory in the future, if you wish.

PC Specialist has also relied on the Intel processor’s graphics hardware rather than supplying a separate graphics card, though again there’s plenty of room to add one later. The same applies to storage, with a 512GB M.2 NVME SSD attached directly to the motherboard, but a second slot lying empty next to it for future growth. If you have storage from another PC you want to add yourself, the chassis includes one bay for 3.5in drives and two places to screw in 2.5in drives. There’s potential for adding an optical drive, too, with a cutout slot available in front for a CD tray.

There are plenty of ports on the device, with two USB 2.0, one USB 3.0 and two 3.5mm jacks on the front. Around the back you’ll find a Gigabit Ethernet port, a USB-C port, another USB 3.0 port and two more USB 2.0 ports (pictured below). To connect your monitor there’s a choice of HDMI, Displayport and VGA. It only has Wi-fi 4 hardware built-in, though, which is a bit behind the times.

The processor helped the PC perform well in our benchmark tests. It’s fast and fluid when running Windows, and is more than powerful enough to run standard office software and browse the web. It didn’t perform as well as more expensive PCS in our demanding multi-tasking benchmark tests, but it doesn’t fall short of what we would expect from a PC that costs £500. By using the built-in graphics of the processor, it’s not the ideal build for gamers. We measured frame rates of 38fps in the racing game Dirt Showdown, running at 1080p resolution, which is fine if that’s all your monitor can manage. However, it dropped to an unplayable 4fps on more challenging games at 4K resolution with full settings. It should run less demanding games such as Minecraft, which it played smoothly as long as detail settings were Medium or Low. Gamers looking for a bargain still need to spend more than £500 to get impressive results.

We were impressed by how quiet the PC is, producing a gentle purr in moderate use, such as browsing the web or using office tools. It got a little louder in our harder gaming and multi-tasking tests, but in normal everyday use the PC barely makes any noise at all.

SPECIFICATIONS

Six-core Intel i5-11400 processor • Intel UHD Graphics 730 • 8GB memory • 512GB M.2 SSD • 1x USB-C port • 2x USB 3.0 ports • 4x USB 2.0 ports • 1x Displayport • 1x HDMI port • 1x VGA port • Wi-fi 4 • Windows 10 Home • 410x180x365mm (HXWXD) • Three-year warranty www.snipca.com/38777

VERDICT An affordable desktop PC built for the future, with plenty of room for upgrading. Runs Windows and office software smoothly, and hardly makes a noise

ALTERNATIVE Chillblast WAP 2500U Ultimate Micro PC £499.99 With a smaller case at a similar price, this Amd-poweredd model will take up much less room