Complete PC Systems Test

Reviews on Complete PC Systems

"Mesh Ultimate Q8 Tri-SLI gaming PC"

Published on: 3/2008

On test: Mesh Ultimate Q8

Everything about the Mesh Ultimate Q8 is imposing. The black CoolerMaster 832 aluminium case is 62cm long and 53 cm tall, and, according to our bathroom scales, weighs in at 22kg.

"PC Nextday Zoostorm 5-3401"

Issue: 12/2007

On test: PC Nextday Zoostorm 5-3401

We're continually amazed by just how much PC manufacturers can fit into ever-decreasing budgets, and much of this can be attributed to the price war between Intel and AMD, who make the processor chips at the heart of most computers. With even top-end processors now available for less than £150, companies like Zoostorm can spend a fraction of that on more modest chips and still produce a decent PC.

"Sony Vaio VGC-LT1S"

Issue: 12/2007

On test: Sony VGC-LT1

The all-in-one form factor is one many companies have flirted with in the past, but few, with the notable exception of Apple, have returned with much gusto. Sony's VGC-LA1 impressed us so much that it won a Recommended award, though, and the VGC-LT1 builds on this solid foundation.

"CyberPower Gamer Infinity Silent Edition"

Issue: 12/2007

On test: Cyber Power Gamer Infinity Silent Edition

CyberPower's Gamer Infinity Silent Edition is the first PC we've seen with Intel's Core 2 Duo processor (our Best Component 2007 award winner) and P35 motherboard chipset. Although the P35 can support newer DDR3 memory, the Infinity's motherboard only supports older DDR2 RAM. However, it is still impressively fast, as the results of our application benchmarks show. It managed an excellent score of 329 in our tough video-encoding test.

Complete PC Systems

A complete PC system is the easiest way to get everything you need in a new PC, secure in the knowledge that everything has been preconfigured and selected to work together flawlessly as a whole.

Systems come with a motherboard, graphics and sound card, hard drive, RAM, optical drive and usually a keyboard and mouse. Be careful though as even though a monitor is usually always shown in pictures, a few systems do not include one as standard. Also have a good look at the specifications and names of manufacturers, the quality of supplied hardware will have a big impact on the speed of the PC.

The amount of RAM should be no less than 512 MB but 1GB or even 2 GB are considered the minimum for running Microsoft's new Vista Operating system. The speed of a processor is also an important factor but can be quite deceptive, look for higher cache values or for a dual core or 64 bit processor as these offer the best processing power but often seem to have the same or lower clock speeds than older processors. Integrated graphics or sound cards will also nullify any gain from choosing a higher processor speed over discrete variants with their own memory and processing chips.

A pre installed operating will save money and time and will have often been checked over to iron out any little problems that occur in new installations.

If you are working with large files or planning on writing DVDs go for a hard drive that is not less than 100 GB, future versions of Windows will need a lot of space and a collection of films and songs can grow faster than you'd expect.

Complete PC systems are currently going for a song and further savings can be made by picknig up systems with only Windows XP as opposed to Vista while stocks last.