Getting the best desktop PC can be a struggle, and despite the domination by laptops, desktops still represent the best value for money in terms of performance vs budget.
Desktop PC users can reap the benefits of the best graphics cards, the fastest processors and a scary amount of storage, and serious gamers will never be swayed from this stalwart of computing.
What's more, desktop PCs are upgradable, expandable, and offer fantastic value compared to similarly powered laptops. So let us take you through the best desktop PCs around.
1. Palicomp Excalibur 6300c35 - £599
The gaming performance of the Excalibur though is definitely down to the impressive £100 5770 thrumming away in the sleek CM Storm Scout chassis. Being able to chuck polygons around at 2560x1600 is not what this machine is all about, and yet it still manages playable frame rates only a little short of the 30fps milestone.
Our only real issue with the Excalibur though is that much of its components are based on last generation hardware. The Athlon II X4 is a thoroughly reasonable quad-core, but is lacking in the more modern cache memory side. The use of DDR2 memory and the 770-chipset motherboard also means that there's little chance of future upgrades. However, for £600 you'd be hard pushed to find a machine as well specified and as quick off the blocks as this.
Read our PalicompExcalibur 6300c35 review
2. Scan 3xs i3 OC - £680
It may only be a dual-core chip, but with Intel's HyperThreading technology, it should better the four cores of the AMD chip. It's also overclocked to a huge 4GHz, over 1GHz faster than the stock speed of the chip. That, paired with the DDR3 memory installed in this rig, should put it head and shoulders above that AMD rig.
The Scan system also looks great from a purely future-looking standpoint. With the H55 motherboard, you've got the option to drop in anything up to a socket 1156 Core i7 and have the vast realms of DDR3 memory at your disposal.
3. Cyberpower Ultra Scylla - £725
The 1055T in this machine comes pre-overclocked, operating at a sturdy 3.5GHz, and eats up processing tasks without breaking a sweat. This rig boasts some seriously impressive Cinebench scores, proving AMD's hex cores capable of breaking up the party for Intel's mid-range i7 chips.
The Ultra Scylla has processing power to spare, given the lack of apps that fully use all six cores. As an out-of-the-box, everything-you-need setup it's fantastic value for money for gaming and processor-heavy tasks like video encoding.
Read our CyberpowerUltra Scylla review
4. CyberPower Infinity i5 Achilles XT - £999
A formidable system which is rammed with great quality components, the Achilles XT packs in an eight threaded Core i7 chip. Gaming benchmarking was slightly disappointing, with the HyperThreading doing little in terms of game speed, but this is still a system which eats up the latest games and spits them out in the form of gaming joy, and more intensive non graphical tasks really show why this i7 chip is worth the money.
Read our CyberPower Infinity i5 Achilles XT review
5. AdvanceTecAT-FX Khaos- £1,532.36
It's a machine that's been put together on a smart budget, with a fantastic array of componentry. It ticks pretty much every box in almost anyone's PC wish list.AdvanceTec, though, has gone down the Nvidia route, securing a GTX 470 to do the graphical grunt work. We checked out the card last issue and an impressive beast it turned out to be. The GTX 470 is a quality bit of silicon and twinned up with the Core i7 930, clocked up to the 4GHz it is here in the Khaos, makes for a rather impressive gaming rig.
Read our AdvanceTecAT-FX Khaos review
6. CyberPower Liquid i7 Charybdis - £1889
The Bloomfield combo of the Core i7 970 and fantastic Asus P6X58D-E motherboard gives you 12 threads of the most advanced CPU cores available, and this is a truly lightening quick machine.
CyberPower has opted for the cheapest 1GB GTX 460 currently on offer so that's almost a compromise, but then when you realise it's dumped two of them in there, and overclocked the pair, it's plain to see you're losing nothing in-game.
£2,000 is a massive amount of cash to drop on a rig, especially one without a screen. But you get way more for your money than in systems asking more than a grand extra.
Read our CyberPower Liquid i7 Charybdis review
7. Apple Mac Pro - £1,999
The mid-2010 refresh's entry-level Mac Pro is a very capable machine, and a worthy investment for anyone looking for desktop power, but isn't a hardcore gamer. Its 2.8GHz quad core Intel Xeon CPU boasts Hyper Threading and Turbo Boost features that help it make the most of its processing power.
Off the shelf it boasts an ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory, allowing you to connect up to three displays. And although even a high-end Mac will never be the gamers' computer of choice, if you like the odd blast, this new Mac Pro is quite capable of pushing around the polygons with the best of them.
8.Cryo PC Hydro Nemesis - £2295
The Hydro Nemesis has got something beating in its silicon heart that makes it a much speedier beast: Intel's brand new Core i7 980X Extreme processor. Yup, six-core processor has found a home in Cryo PC's liquid-cooled gaming behemoth. Along with the twin HD 5870 graphics cards, that makes this one of the fastest gaming PCs available today.
CryoPC, doesn't think that's quite good enough and has gone to great lengths to install a full watercooling loop to take care of this monster CPU and give it a fairly hefty factory overclock. It's also crossed the 4GHz threshold, clocking the i7 980X at a lightening 4.2GHz, almost managing to up the clockspeeds by a full 1GHz.
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