48 OCTOBER 2019|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 380
01
Abasic PC costing around £350 will
be able to run everydayoffice,
multimedia and education software and will
easily cope with surfing the internet. It might
even be able to run some modern games.
Many PCs can be sold either with or
without amonitor.Ifyou don’t like the
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 RAM and alarge hard
disk; 1TB should suffice.Many new PCs have
an SSD,which speeds up the time it takes for
your PC to boot and forprograms to load.
05
Having plenty of USB ports is
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 bear in
mind that they’re significantly harder to
upgrade than full-size machines.
PCs
ACERChromeboxCXI3
★★★★★
£501•shop.bt.com
RASPBERRYPI
4ModelB
★★★★★
£34•thepihut.com
An absolutely tiny Chrome OS
system, the Chromebox CXI3 is
compact enough to attach to
the back of amonitor.Even better,ithas more
power than most Chromeboxes, thanks to its
Core i5 processor,and is loaded with useful
ports in spiteofits minimal size.It’s cheap,too,
although we’d recommend investing in abetter mouse and keyboard
than the bundled peripherals.
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.
PROCESSORQuad-core1.6GHzIntelCorei5-82500U•RAM8GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2xUSB3•
REARUSBPORTS3xUSB3,1xUSBType-C•TOTALSTORAGE64GBSSD•DISPLAYNone•
OPERATINGSYSTEMChromeOS•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.acer.com•
PARTCODEDT.ZOSEK.001•FULLREVIEWAug2019
PROCESSOR1.5GHzquad-coreBroadcomBCM2711•RAM1GB•USBPORTS1xUSBType-C
(power),2xUSB2,2xUSB3•STORAGEMicroSDcardslot•DISPLAYNone•OPERATING
SYSTEMRaspbian•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.raspberypi.org•PARTCODEPi4
ModelB•FULLREVIEWSep2019
PCSPECIALISTVortexS2
★★★★★
£1,599•www.pcspecialist.co.uk
Easily the best-value
RTX2080 system we’ve
seen, the Vortex S2
combines this 4K-ready graphics card
with anippyocta-core Intel Core i7-9700F
CPU. While you can’t overclock this, you
don’t really need to,and the deal is
sweetened further by onboard Wi-Fi,
quiet watercooling and PC Specialist’s
characteristically high build quality.
PROCESSOROcta-core3GHzIntelCorei7-9700F•RAM16GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2xUSB3•
REARUSBPORTS6xUSB3•TOTALSTORAGE256GBSSD,2TBharddisk•GRAPHICSCARD8GB
NvidiaGeForceRTX2080•OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10Home•WARRANTYThreeyears
labour, oneyearparts,onemonthcollectandreturn•DETAILSwww.pcspecialist.co.uk•PART
CODEVortexS2•FULLREVIEWSep2019
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-core3.6GHzAMDRyzen52600X•RAM8GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2xUSB2,
1xUSB3•REARUSBPORTS2xUSB2,2xUSB3,2xUSB3.1,1xUSBType-C•TOTALSTORAGE
512GBSSD,1TBharddisk•GRAPHICSCARD8GBAMDRadeonRX570Armor8GBOC•
OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10Home•WARRANTYThreeyearsRTB•DETAILS
http://www.palicomp.co.uk•PARTCODERYZ6•FULLREVIEWApr2019
YPI A
the
er processor,
networking
al HDMI outputs
better desktop computer
ls, and it hasn’t lost any appeal as acheap
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