How To Spend Your Christmas Cash

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 26th December 2008

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Hardware

OK, it’s time to pull out the big guns and take a look at the hardware. This stuff is expensive though so, while we normally like to keep our Christmas suggestions to around £125 in cost, we’ve abolished the price guidelines here.

So, yeah, this is the stuff you should buy yourself if the impending new year has you feeling really depressed and you find yourself in need of some truly gluttonous retail therapy.

Below is only a fairly limited set of recommendations though, so remember that if you’re looking to build yourself an entirely new PC this Christmas or if you want to see a wider range of hardware choices then you can always check out our monthly buyers guide for a selection of budget and high-end choices.

And naturally, if you think you can suggest something better then we'd love to hear your recommendations or ideas in the forums.

BenQ FP241W 24”

How To Spend Your Christmas Cash How To Spend Your Christmas Cash - Hardware

UK Price: £346.99 (inc. VAT)
US Price: $735.00 (ex. Tax)
Full Review Here

This may be an oldie, but it’s still a goodie and as far as we’re concerned it still represents amazing value for money – especially since it’s had a number of price cuts over the years.

For just a shade or two over £300 in the UK you can now snag yourself a truly stunning 24” display that comfortably and precisely displays all the colours of the rainbow without losing definition. It’s also got oodles of connectivity, including HDMI and native support for full HD 1080p playback.

At 24" the BenQ is going to make all your games immersive and engaging without overflowing over the edges of your desk too, though we can always recommend a new desk if that turns out to be a problem!

Granted, this isn’t a monitor that’ll do for image editors and Photoshop wizards, but if you’re an avid gamer and you don’t want to totally break the bank then this is definitely the monitor to go for and you can check out the full review if you're still not sure.

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB

UK Price: £129.50 (inc. VAT)
US Price: $169.99 (ex. Tax)
Full Review Here

If you’re looking to upgrade your PC itself and you don’t mind spending a fair chunk o’ dough then the graphics card is the best place to start, guaranteeing a performance increase in any games you’d care to play. A new graphics card would go well with the monitor above too.

The HD 4850 is our current recommendation for any mid-range system, boasting dual DVI outputs, fantastic value for money and plenty of polygon-pushing power. It isn’t true top of the line hardware, but if you’re not wanting to shell out huge amounts then this is a solid choice.

Not that the HD 4850 doesn’t have drawbacks though; there’s arguably too much heat put out by this card, so we’d recommend looking for one with an after-market cooler if you’re serious about your gaming or are even thinking about overclocking in the future. Not that finding one should be a problem – there are plenty of custom cooled, pre-overclocked versions around.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 216

UK Price: £203.49 (inc. VAT)
US Price: $266.99 (ex. Tax)
Full Review Here

Not an ATI fan, eh? Fine. If you want to bat for the green team then this is our recommendation for you. It’s a bit more high-end and you pay a little more for it, but it’s a great card for anyone who wants to future proof their systems. This card works well on its own, but if you’re thinking of moving to a multi-GPU system anytime in the future then this is a great system. It’s fantastic in an SLI system.

The really good news though is that the 216 stream processor version has had a pretty hefty price cut lately in Europe, so on a bang-for-buck level this is a damned good choice of card.

Again, this is a slightly more expensive option for a card compared to the HD 4850 above, but it is also a more powerful card – more high end than mid-range. If you’re looking for more information though then you can check out our monthly buyers guide for more details and suggestions.