We highlight some of the best PC
deals around
Sometimes, you don’t want to build a PC
from scratch – you just want to buy one off the digital shelf. With that in
mind, we’ve trawled our way through a selection of UK computer retailers and
hand-picked some of the best systems around. Whether you want to avoid the
hassle of a manual build, or use a working system as a base for future
upgrades, we’ve found the best on the market and given you clear advice about
why they’re good, what could be better, and what you should expect if you buy
one!
Best Budget Gaming PC: CCL
Elite Hawk II
Price: $629
Retailer: CCL
Link: bit.ly/PIFEbi
The CCL Elite Hawk II is a gaming PC that,
in CCL’s words, is designed to give the best performance across FPS, RTS,
MMORPG and action RPG games, as well as many other genres that don’t even have
their depending on your choice of operating system – it’s cheapest without one,
and Windows 7 Ultimate is the most expensive. With Windows 8, it’ll ring up at
$736, so still shy of $750.
The
CCL Elite Hawk II is a gaming PC that, in CCL’s words, is designed to give the
best performance across FPS, RTS, MMORPG and action RPG games
Hardware features include a quad-core AMD
FX 4170 (socket AM3+), 4GB of memory (2 x 2GB), a 1TB SATA 6Gbps Seagate
Barracuda hard drive, Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard, 430 Watt PSU, a 22x
DVD+/-RW optical drive and a ‘value choice’ (i.e. manufacturer unspecified) AMD
Radeon 7770 1GB graphics card. Housing all that is a Fractal Design Core 1000
micro-ATX case, and you also get a two-year warranty.
What we liked: The Radeon 7770 is a convincingly high-powered card for any gaming
system, never mind one that’s designed to go easy on your wallet. Even though
you don’t know which manufacturer you’re getting the hardware from, all of the
cards are based on the same reference design, so you can be certain that it’s
going to pull its weight when it comes to playing games. To illustrate quite how
weight a card it is, it easily makes up around 20-25% of the total cost of the
system, so it’s clearly a gaming-heavy machine. Despite this, the rest of the
hardware doesn’t feel like it’s suffering from being stripped down – AMD
processor aside, you’d barely notice from the specs that this costs little more
than $600.
What’s the catch?: From the specs, our main concern about this system is that it’s
already pushing the limit of its own capabilities, and it’s not going to be
long before you’re installing games that demand the sort of power that it just
can’t give. The PSU is just good enough to cover the amount of wattage it
needs, the CPU is just fast enough for modern gaming, and 4GB of memory is the
minimum any of its operating systems need. We suspect it’ll need an upgrade
well before the two year warranty is out if it’s going to stay competitive, and
the mini-ATX case and small, motherboard means there’s not a huge amount of
room to expand as it is. Still, the CPU can be upgraded to an AMD eight-core
chip, it’s relatively easy to put in a more powerful PSU and graphics card, and
there’s space for extra RAM, so it does make a reasonably good base and with
that in mind, the fantastically low price makes it worth considering.
Best HTPC: Mini Carnivore HTPC
Price: $703
Retailer:
DinoPC
Link:
bit.ly/10hei1Y
Home theatre systems need to be two things:
small and quiet. And despite its slightly menacing name, the Mini Carnivore
HTPC is both of those things. It runs on an Intel Core i3-3220 Ivy Bridge CPU,
with an Asus P8H77-I motherboard and 4GB (1 x 4GB) of RAM. Storage is a 320GB
2.5” SATA 3Gbps hard drive, and an 8x DVD+/-RW optical drive completes the set
of drives. The graphics card is a surprisingly hefty Radeon HD 6570 1GB, and
it’s all packed into a stylish Antec ISK320-150 case. You also get a wireless N
Wi-Fi dongle, Windows 8 preinstall and a three-year warranty.
Home
theatre systems need to be two things: small and quiet. And the Mini Carnivore
HTPC is both of those things
What we liked: Primarily, you have to respect the amount of power available in
this system. It’s mainly a home theatre PC, admittedly, but between the
graphics card and Core i3 CPU it could as well be a fairly comfortable gaming
system. Perfect if you want a PC that can sit under your TV and act as a de
facto games console. Of course, it’s an HTPC first, and in that regard
it’s hard to do better. It looks great, it’s fast, the operating system is bang
up to date and it has a ton of USB ports, video-out options and audio sockets
to help you hook it up to anything you like. A strong choice of entertainment
machine in any context.
What’s the catch?: It’s arguably a little too powerful for a standard HTPC, but we
can’t help being suckers for its gaming capabilities. As long as you can come
to terms with the reasonably hefty price that lumbers it with, it’s not a
problem. We can spot one thing that’s obviously missing from this setup,
though, and that’s a Blue-ray drive, which any self-respecting HTPC really does
need in this era of high-definition content. Luckily, the DinoPC website gives
you a ton of customization options, and for a mere $72 more you can get the
Blu-ray drive this sorely needs. If you want to make that back in the budget,
you can always buy it without an operating system – dropping Windows 8 lops $89
off the price. Ideal if you’ve still got your Windows 7 installer lying around.
Best Home & Student PC: Gladiator
Pronto H3220
Price: $840
Retailer:
Aria
Link:
bit.ly/XqJY25
Designed for casual but diverse uses, the
Gladiator Pronto H3220 is a system that packs a lot of punch in all the right
places. It’s frugal where it has to be, but doesn’t shy away from featuring
some of the best components. At $840, it might seem costly for a general-use
machine at first glance, but scratch the surface and you’ll understand where
that comes from.
Designed
for casual but diverse uses, the Gladiator Pronto H3220 is a system that packs
a lot of punch in all the right places
The CPU in the Gladiator Pronto H3220 is,
as the model name might have given away, an Ivy Bridge Intel Core i3-3220
clocked at 3.3GHz, with graphics provided by Intel’s Integrated HD2500 GPU.
There’s 8GB of Corsair 1600MHz RAM (2 x 4GB) and it’s all plugged into a gigabyte
GA-B75M-D3H motherboard. The built-in storage includes both a 1TB SATA 6Gpbs
Seagate Barracuda AND a 120GB Samsung 840 series SSD. The PSU is a 500W Cooler
Master Elite, default company for the Cooler Master Elite 343 micro-ATX case.
You also get a 24x LKG dual-layer DVD writer, TP-Link wireless N network
adapter and a six-slot flash card reader, and a 12-month warranty.
What we liked: Considering it’s designed for home and student work, the Pronto
H3220 is filled with components that, frankly, might seem excessive. An Ivy
Bridge CPU and motherboard? An SSD drive? 1600MHz RAM? 500W PSU? You could be
forgiven for thinking that it’s maybe a bit much for a system that’s just going
to be used to browse the web and watch TV.
The again, when we look at it, we don’t see
a system that’s overreaching. We see on that’s designed to last for years to
come. Buy this at the start of a university course, and there’s no question
that it’ll still be performing well by the end of it. You won’t need to make
any upgrades before the warranty runs out, but when it does you’ll have plenty
of space to make them. Better yet, throw in a graphics card and an Ivy Bridge
Core i5 processor and this system turns into a very credible gaming PC. It’s
more than you need today, but that means it’ll still be competitive tomorrow.
What’s the catch?: The catch is that as a result of this forward-looking ethos, you
have to pay a lot of money in the short term so that you can reap it back over
the long term. There’s no doubt that the Gladiator Pronto H3220 is a good value
purchase, but that value is spread over several years rather than delivered
upfront. The question you have to answer is whether you’d rather spend $840 now
or $450 today, and a further $450 in two to three years. It’s undeniably a good
value computer, but it isn’t aimed at people who are shopping on a budget.
