48 MAY2020|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE387
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
ACER ChromeboxCXI3
★★★★★
£458•www.lambda-tek.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.
Afasterprocessor,
quickernetworking
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-core1.6GHzIntel Core i5-82500U•RAM8GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2x USB3•
REARUSBPORTS3x USB3,1xUSB Type-C•TOTALSTORAGE64GB SSD•DISPLAYNone•
OPERATINGSYSTEMChrome OS•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.acer.com•
PARTCODEDT.ZOSEK.001•FULLREVIEWAug2019
PROCESSOR1.5GHz quad-core BroadcomBCM2711•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
CCLPaladin
★★★★★
£1,555•www.cclonline.com
The Paladin is stuffed
with AMD’s latest
technology,including the
excellent octa-core Ryzen 73700X CPU and a
4K-capable Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card.
Storage is another highlight: the SSD isn’t a
PCI-E 4.0 model, which the motherboard is
compatible with, but it’s still very fast and
offers an enormous 1TB of space by itself.
PROCESSOROcta-core3.6GHz AMDRyzen 73700X•RAM16GB•FRONTUSBPORTS2x USB2,
2x USB3•REARUSBPORTS2x USB2, 2x USB3, 2x USB3.1, 1x USB Type-C•TOTALSTORAGE1TB
SSD, 2TBharddisk•GRAPHICSCARD8GBAMD Radeon RX 5700XT•OPERATINGSYSTEM
Windows10Home•WARRANTYThreeyears collectand return•DETAILSwww.cclonline.com•
PARTCODEGAME-PBME 0202 0304 0100020002000000 0000 020001•FULLREVIEW
Nov2019
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
YPI
t
rprocessor,
networking
alHDMI outputs
etter desktop computer
,andithasn’tlostanyappealasacheap
