My current computer is almost dead and I'm looking to buy a new one. At the moment I'm thinking of this one, but it's a tesco make... so yeah I'm unsure. I don't know much about specs but it looks decent, so it would be good if someone could point out anything bad about the specs or point me in the direction of a better PC. I don't want to spend much more than that PC (£579) so I'd say £600 is my budget.

Thanks

That computer is about the same spec as mine...

Mine is nearly 3 years old...

As to what to look for.. Depends what you want..

Always go for the highest RAM you can afford.

Then look at the processor.

The size of the harddrive isn't really that important nowadays.. Nearly all computers have massive harddrives. And anyway you can always get a USB pen or an extra storage drive for cheap. (£10+)

If you want to play lots of new games then look for a good graphics card and maybe some fancy speaker set-up.

I think all monitors are the flatscreen ones now.. Don't get a HUGE one if you're going to be sitting in front of it as it give most people a headache once they get over 21 inches... (you measure the screen not the whole thing diagonally.) Mine's 19 inches and it gave me a really awful headache for the first 2-3 months.

Get a laptop

I'm not bothered about the moniter and speakers.

It looks like it can run most new games, 2gb ram seems good.

I don't want a laptop yet and this one has a tv tuner...

Not a bad PC but is there anyone, friend or family that knows about computers. Becuase it's so much better to build them yourself, it's also alot cheaper to buy the parts seperate of microdriect or somewhere.

My dad knows a bit about computers so I could ask him. My friend is building a computer and its coming to a cost of 900 with, I think, similar specs.

Obviously depends on what you buy and were you buy it from... Like you could go whole hog and put a liquid cooling system in and and Blu-ray RW which would shoot you well over a grand. Best thing to do is work out what you actually want it for (gaming, work etc.) and then talk to your dad and mate to see what they think, shop around for shit etc.

But I can't really see the point in getting a big fancy computer if you've already got a 360 for your games, I'd just get something with a nice little graphics card and processor, a not to rediculously sized HD and a lot of RAM and maybe a TV card if that takes your fancy. Which if you built your own shouldn't cost much at all and should run most of the games on the market and be crazilly fast at load up times for your normal programs - Will also be good for editing software.

Buy a mac.

£600 wont get you much of a mac... maybe a nice Macbook.

prolly a few hundred nice big macs but nothing more

I recommend the £800 iMac, ever since i got my mac, i have liked it much more than my windows pc.

I'm not going to use it entirely for gaming, I just want an all round pc really. My logic is that if it is a good pc for gaming then it should be good for most other stuff... right?

The PC you linked to looks to be good, however if you are quite serious about gaming and want it to last (i.e. not to have to get a new one in a year or two) I would consider upping the graphics card on it (which at the mo is 256, pretty much the minimum standard for gaming now), and possibly the RAM to 4GB, since today's games use lots of it. Add to that the fact that will be running Vista, which takes a minimum of 1GB RAM to run on its own... you get the picture

A good gaming machine that will last a few years will probably cost you just under a grand. Also, I'm not sure on buying a PC from Tesco. After sales service, support etc. will probably be crap.

You say you're not bothered about monitor and speakers, but monitor is very important, maybe speakers not so much. For gaming you'll want a 5ms response time at the least, you probably want it to be at least 19". Dell make fantastic cheap monitors, belive it or not.

As for Mac vs. PC, stick to a PC for gaming, as only the super popular games are ported to the Mac platform.

Not necessarily. Valve Software aren't too keen on the Mac, and they've made a whole bunch of popular games.

so you say that you had a quad core clocked at 2.4 ghz with an 8mb cache.

2 gig of ram

and a terrebyte of HD space. 3 years ago?

Get a custom build. Much better value for money, and you can choose exactly what you want, rather than what PC World or whoever decide to give you.

Not sure about custom building, don't know much about all the parts and that. I suppose I could look into it. Any good sites to buy from? I've checked out that microdirect site that adam said, any more?

And I really don't need a new moniter, my old 16" philips is fine as it is.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk

Pretty much...
Less HD space tho...

Actually now you mention it maybe I've only had it 2 years...
Still..

If you want to get a custom computer, go onto www.pcspecialist.co.uk. They do some nice, cheap computers. Also, HP make very nice and reliable computers. I'm getting this one soon.

No it isn't. Not anymore.

quad core only came out in 07 and duel cores wernt clocking at those speeds 2 years back.

Yeah, PC Specialist are good.

However, I disagree with people who say that building yourself is cheaper than buying complete, it isn't. Consider than companies like Dell, HP etc. buy components in massive bulk quantities, assemble then resell them, so they buy them much cheaper than at RRP.

The only way you would really get better value for money that way is to either manage to get AMAZING deals or buy second hand/older components. And if you do that, and something goes wrong, who are you going to turn to for warranty, when there is none?

Don't know if you've bought a computer yet but can I recommend buying a custom built one from Overclockers.co.uk. I bought all the parts and got a mate to put it together and the cost came to just under £600. I can't be arsed to write what parts I bought so here's a screenshot.

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/716/specsem3.png

For gaming, it's great so far. It'll run Team Fortress 2/Supreme Commander/Call of Duty 4 at max detail and resolution with no drop in FPS. The only game it hasn't been able to run at full yet is Crysis which it runs at Med/High