Choosing a PC

What PC should I buy? This is one of those questions that is difficult to answer straight away because it really comes down to what you want to do with the PC when you get it.

Many salesmen will ask you what your requirements are and recommend a PC based upon the requirements you give. We always give a word of caution here because in our experience, what you want a PC for today is normally not the case tomorrow.

It is only when you get your first PC that you fully understand what its capabilities are and your expectations are raised and therefore your requirements.

Our advice is to buy a PC slightly beyond your current requirements.

Light User

If you want a PC just to type the occasional letter etc. then our advice would be to buy a second hand or reconditioned machine.

However, if you feel you still would like a new PC go for a Celeron processor, 256 megabytes of RAM, a 20 gigabyte Hard Disk Drive and a DVD-Rom drive. You should not require a separate graphics card.

PCs with this specification can be bought for as little as £250.

Standard User

This level of PC would be for playing games, playing movies, standard applications and internet capable for homework.

The machine to buy would be a Pentium 4 or Athlon equivalent processor, minimum 512 megabytes of RAM, a large Hard Disk Drive and a separate video card (minimum 128Mb dedicated RAM recommended) and a separate sound card. The graphics and sound capabilities of in-built systems is normally not good enough. You will also need a modem or router to attach to the internet.

You should expect to pay between £450 and £600 for a system with this specification.

Heavy User

A PC suitable as a heavy games machine.

You would require a minimum of a Pentium 4 3Ghz processor or Athlon equivalent, 1 gigabyte of RAM, 100 gigabyte Hard Disk Drive and a separate graphics card with at least 256 megabytes of dedicated RAM.

PCs with this specification would be in the region of £800 to £1000.