48 JULY2020|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE389
01
AbasicPCcostingaround£350will
beabletoruneverydayoffice,
multimediaandeducationsoftwareandwill
easilycopewithsurfingtheinternet.Itmight
evenbeabletorunsomemoderngames.
ManyPCscanbesoldeitherwithor
withoutamonitor.Ifyoudon’tlikethe
displaythe manufacturer is offering, you
can always use your current one,orbuy
another one separately.
02
If you want to playgames, you’ll
have to upgrade the graphics card.
Budget cards such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX
1050 will cope well with many 3D games, but
to playthe latest 3D games smoothly (and
enjoythe best-quality graphics) it’s worth
upgrading to amore powerful card such as
the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070.
Choosinga... PCsystem
03
All modern PCs come with at least
adual-core processor and are
capable of most tasks. Anyone who
regularly undertakes demanding tasks
such as video editing and encoding
should consider ahexa-core or even
an octa-core processor.
04
There are plenty of good reasons to
upgrade the PC’s memory or hard
disk. If you’ll use your PC forgaming, video
editing or other demanding tasks, you’ll
need at least 8GB of RAMand alarge hard
disk; 1TB should suffice. Many newPCs have
an SSD,which speeds up the time it takes for
your PC to boot and forprograms to load.
05
Having plenty of USB portsis
always useful, as most computer
peripherals attach to these ports. Most new
PCs come with USB3 or the latest USB3.1
ports, which provide faster data transfers
when used with supported devices than the
older USB2 standard.
06
Most new PCs now come with
Windows 10 pre-installed. Don’t be
tooeasily swayed by the inclusion of other
software,though, as it maybethat you’ll
never use it.
07
While most PCs come in cases of
asimilar size,some have more
compact mini tower or mini PC cases.
These smaller PCs will fit under your TV
or on your desk more easily,but bearin
mind that they’re significantly harder to
upgrade than full-size machines.
PCs
WIRED2FIREUltimaWS
★★★★★
£603•www.wired2fire.co.uk
RASPBERRYPI
4ModelB
★★★★★
£34•thepihut.com
Ahighlycapable home office
PC with hardware and
performance well exceeding
what you’d normally get at this price.King of
it all is the Ryzen 53600 processor,which
together with 16GB of RAM makes the Ultima
WS agreat productivity aid when dealing
with large spreadsheets or editing photos and
video.Iteven has agigantic 1TB SSD.
Afaster processor,
quicker networking
and dual HDMI outputs
make the Pi 4amuch better desktop computer
than previous Pi models, and it hasn’t lost any appeal as acheap
hobbyist board, either.4Kvideo implementation could be better
–wehad issues getting smooth playback in Raspbian –but that’s
the only noteworthy concern.
PROCESSORHexa-core3.6GHzAMD Ryzen53600•RAM16GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2x USB2,
1x USB3•REARUSBPORTS4x USB2, 4x USB3•TOTALSTORAGE1TBSSD•DISPLAYNone•
OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10Home•WARRANTYFive yearslabourincluding twoyears parts
- DETAILSwww.wired2fire.co.uk•PARTCODEUltima WS•FULLREVIEWMay2020
PROCESSORQuad-core1.5GHzBroadcom BCM2711•RAM1GB•USBPORTS1x USB Type-C
(power),2xUSB2, 2x USB3•STORAGEMicroSD card slot•DISPLAYNone•OPERATING
SYSTEMRaspbian•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.raspberypi.org•PARTCODEPi 4
Model B•FULLREVIEWSep 2019
ALPHABETAPCAMDRyzen7Pro
GamingDesktopPC
★★★★★
£1,849•www.alphabetapc.com
Forall its flashy styling,
what really makes this
agreat PC is the simple
balance of top-grade internals. The
Ryzen 73800X is afantastically strong
CPU on its own, and it also fully enables
the RTX2080 graphics card to go to
work, pumping out high gaming performance even at 4K.
PROCESSOROcta-core3.9GHzAMD Ryzen73800X•RAM32GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2x USB2,
1x USB3•REARUSBPORTS4x USB3, 1x USB3.1, 1x USB Type-C•TOTALSTORAGE500GB SSD,
2TB hard disk•GRAPHICSCARD8GBGigabyteGeForce RTX2080 SuperWindforce OC•
OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows 10 Home•WARRANTYThreeyears RTBincluding30dayscollect
and return•DETAILSwww.alphabetapc.com•PARTCODEAMDRyzen 7Pro GamingDesktopPC
PALICOMPAMDAbyss
★★★★★
£700•www.palicomp.co.uk
At this price,you’d
seriously struggle to find
amore comprehensively
capable desktop system than Palicomp’s
AMD Abyss. It can multitask with
serious applications just as well as it
can run games, and with its large,fast
NVMe SSD,itwon’t be slowed down
by storage.There’s alot of room for
future upgrades, too.
PROCESSORHexa-core 3.6GHz AMDRyzen 52600X•RAM8GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2x USB2,
1x USB3•REARUSBPORTS2x USB2, 2x USB3, 2x USB3.1, 1x USB Type-C•TOTALSTORAGE
512GBSSD,1TB hard disk•GRAPHICSCARD8GBAMD Radeon RX570Armor 8GBOC•
OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10Home•WARRANTYThreeyearsRTB•DETAILS
http://www.palicomp.co.uk•PARTCODERYZ6•FULLREVIEWApr2019
W
w
t
YPI
rprocessor,
networking
alHDMI outputs
etter desktop computer
,andithasn’tlostanyappealasacheap
DRyzen 7 Pro
NEW
ENTRY
