The best system you can buy for £1000

When choosing a new computer, we often set ourselves a budget and then look for the highest numbers – fastest processor, largest memory capacity and speediest graphics card.

While this may seem the obvious approach, it’s a bit of a generalisation; it’s far more important to assess what you’re going to use it for.

On the same budget, you could get a system that’s a gaming behemoth but not too hot on video editing, or a system that’ll handle multiple instances of hi-def video, yet struggle to give more than a few frames per second in one of the latest games.

Over the next few pages, we’ve looked at a mixture of full systems and base units, each costing less than £1,000. We put them through their paces using two benchmarks.

Firstly, we’ve tested how each system copes with World in Conflict, a DirectX 10 game that’s one of the most demanding available in terms of graphics power.

We’ve then looked at how quickly each system renders a highly-detailed 3D model. While we’re not suggesting you’ll be using your system for high-end rendering, it’s an excellent test of how quickly it calculates raw arithmetic, which can be applied to everything it does, such as opening multiple windows or documents.

These tests should reveal just how well the systems have been put together, what type of person they may best suit, and whether buying a complete package offers more or less value than a base unit.

Stand out from the crowd

Product Commodore G

Price £999

WebCommodore Gaming

Buy it if… You want a system that looks great.

Don’t buy it if… You want to make the most of your money, or play new games.

The bottom line Pretty, but its beauty is only skin-deep, and you can get better for the money

This distinctive technicolor cuboid reflects Commodore’s rebirth as a manufacturer of powerful gaming systems. The particular model we’ve chosen is Commodore’s most basic, placing it just under our £1,000 mark.

The model we received proudly bore Halo 2 livery, though if you’d prefer a more generic design there are a number of patterns available.

The paintwork is very good, and the high-gloss covering means it’ll last. The drives are tucked away behind a door; behind this is a large, LED-lit fan that cycles through a number of illuminations. It’s a little too lurid for our liking, though, and a good reason to keep the door closed.

Commodore can’t be faulted on its component brand choice – had we been building a similar PC ourselves, we’d have opted for many of the same manufacturers.

The nVidia 8800GTS graphics card isn’t in the same league as the 8800GTX, but it’ll still thunder through most current titles if combined with the right processor. Sadly, it isn’t; the quad-core is still largely unused in games, and a faster dual-core would have been a better choice.

The system averaged an underwhelming 18 frames a second in the intensive World In Conflict DirectX 10 benchmark on High Detail, and a paltry four frames a second on Very High. In multi-core benchmarks, however, the processor rendered our 3D image in just over five minutes, twice as fast as the dual-core processor in the PC Specialist system.

All this suggests that despite its intentions as a gaming monster, it’s more suited to processor-intensive tasks such as video or image editing.

Normally, that wouldn’t be a reason to mark it down, but it’s marketed so heavily as a games system we can’t help but feel cheated.

For many, the case may be a reason to pay more, but if you’re after the fastest system for your money, you can do better.

Best gaming system for your money

Product ZooStorm 4-4423

Price £1000

WebPC Next Day

Buy it if… You want the best gaming PC a grand can buy.

Don’t buy it if… You can’t live without four cores.

The bottom line Gloriously powerful gaming for an amazing price

The 4-4423’s case is a mixture of sleek plastic and brushed aluminium. Its DVD drive is neatly hidden behind a spring-loaded door, and access to the card reader and USB sockets requires sliding a panel down.

The inclusion of the topend GeForce 8800GTX graphics card is an easy win for PC Nextday, especially when combined with the equally-powerful E6850 processor.

Add into the equation the keyboard, mouse, monitor and Philips surround speakers and it’s not just an impressive package – it’s unbeatable.

A Windows Experience Index of 5.7 puts it as close to the holy grail of 5.9 as we’ve seen at this price point.

Despite the external logos, there’s no branding within Windows Vista and no preinstalled software on the hard drive. Copies of Nero 7 Essentials and Tomb Raider: Anniversary are included.

It’s nice to be given the choice of what to install, and especially nice to get a free game to try out on a new system.

The AOC monitor is huge, analogue-only, and doesn’t perform particularly well. It suffers from a distinct lack of contrast and looks washed out, even in the traditionally saturated ‘game’ mode.

Despite this, the sheer value of the base unit makes it easy to forgive, and the other peripherals aren’t bad at all; the speakers, especially, are more than qualified to make the most of Realtek HD surround audio in games.

Our test render completed in 10 minutes – far slower than our quad-core results, though slightly faster than the other dual-core on test.

We initially experienced problems with textures and effects not showing up in our graphics benchmark. A quick download and re-install of the nVidia drivers fixed the problem, and we were on our way.

As expected, the system performed admirably, hitting an average of 27 frames a second on Very High Detail and a similarly impressive 34 frames a second on High.

A powerful all-rounder

Product MESH Blizzard Quad GT

Price £999

WebMesh

Buy it if… You want a powerful multi-tasker that’ll handle hi-def video.

Don’t buy it if… You’re looking for a great gaming PC.

The bottom line A solid system with enough raw power to let you do a lot of things at once

Mesh has always been good at creating elaborate titles for its systems, and the Blizzard Quad GT is no exception.

As the name suggests, it’s a quadcore system, using the same 2.4GHz processor as Commodore’s offering.

Mesh has concentrated on making this an excellent all-rounder, including a digital TV tuner, 5.1 surround speaker system and a wireless mouse and keyboard.

The emphasis is on multi-tasking rather than single-threaded applications such as games, and the processor is supported by a whopping 4GB of memory.

Mesh has chosen a fantastic case, with an understated yet attractive ‘wave’ design.

Company branding is clear yet not imposing; the generic motherboard splash screen has been replaced with the Mesh logo, and a ‘Mesh shortcuts’ folder on the desktop means you’re always within easy reach of support and product information.

Windows Vista itself comes set up with a user account. We’d like to have seen the usual options to set our own username and password.

As expected, the Blizzard performed better in processor-intensive tests than in our World in Conflict test. We can’t help but wonder why Mesh has used two 8600GT graphics cards; a single 8800GTS would have blown them both out of the water, and left room for an upgrade later.

As a result, on Very High Detail the system struggled to muster more than two frames per second, with High Detail yielding a negligible, and still unplayable, improvement. Rendering took under five minutes, showing the processor’s power when all four cores are employed.

The bundled monitor is reasonably sharp, but the viewing angle is poor, so it’s no good for watching films unless you sit dead centre.

Thankfully, its inclusion seems to take little out of the budget; it may not be a strong gaming system, but for everything else it’s a good choice for less than a grand.

High-end gaming on a budget

Product Apollo Q660-X

Price £949

WebPC Specialist

Buy it if… You want superb graphics performance.

Don’t buy it if… You need the power of quad-core for multi-tasking.

The bottom line A great choice of components makes this an impressive performer

Three glowing circles. These door-mounted rings of tranquillity do well to disguise the various buttons, drives and orifices that litter the Apollo’s front, so it’s a good choice if you want a system that doesn’t immediately scream ‘PC!’

Windows Vista Home Premium powers the system, which is largely untouched by the manufacturer, though you are subjected to the usual bundled programs; on this occasion Nero 7 Essentials and PowerDVD, neither of which offer much in terms of functionality over Windows Vista itself.

As it’s supplied as a base unit only, PC Specialist has been able to put all its resources into building the fastest system possible, and as a result the Apollo is a powerful beast. A Core 2 Duo E6850, running at 3GHz, provides one of the fastest operating environments currently available.

Like Commodore, PC Specialist has chosen an nVidia GeForce 8800GTS graphics card, though it has opted for the higher-end version, with 640MB graphics memory onboard. This means more memory for storing textures – the pre-rendered images that are pasted onto surfaces in a 3D game environment to make it look realistic.

The benefi ts of these components were instantly visible in our World in Conflict DirectX 10 test; the Apollo managed an average of 21 frames per second, even at Very High Detail, and a solid 27 frames per second on High Detail.

In our processor rendering tests, the dual-core processor took around eleven minutes to render our test model – twice as long as Commodore’s technically slower quad-core processor

With the budget spent on the graphics card and processor, it’s a shame that PC Specialist has had to cut back on hard drive space; 400GB isn’t much for a gaming system, though a quick look under the bonnet reveals enough space to easily add a further three drives.