What Hardware Should I Buy? - June 2009

Author: Alex Watson
Published: 2nd June 2009
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What Hardware Should I Buy? - June 2009

June is the time when things heat up - the summer sun should be shining, and as far PC hardware and technology goes, the yearly Computex trade show should give a good indication of what hot new products we'll be seeing, salivating over and slating in the second half of the year. You don't need to know much about technology to know there's always new kit on the way, but it's especially true this year, with brand new Nehalem-based mainstream CPUs from Intel, and DirectX 11 graphics cards from Nvidia and ATI.

All this means that the heat is on retailers and component companies to offer enticing deals on existing kit. While there haven't been too many big new launches recently, prices of high-end hardware are up and down like the rain covers at Wimbledon. We've spent plenty of time considering and cogitating to bring you our monthly recommendations of the very best enthusiast hardware to suit any budget.

The volatility of prices has put the squeeze on the four machines we usually suggest, and our two mid-range systems - the Enthusiast Overclocker and Gaming Workhouse have been merged. Price changes meant we could combine the later's name and gaming prowess with the former's overclocking abilities and we couldn't see any sense in carrying on with two discreet mid-range PCs that were essentially the same.

What Hardware Should I Buy? - June 2009

As always, all recommendations made in the guide are based entirely on either our personal experiences with hardware or our own reviews (both on bit-tech and in Custom PC) and occasionally positive feedback and suggestions we receive from our ever-growing community. With such a huge amount of experience and product knowledge behind our recommendations, you can rest assured any product listed will be a quality choice, but not the absolute and only answer, as you will clearly have your own personal preferences.

Free Delivery on Orders over £50

There is one change this month, though - we've partnered with popular online retailer CCL to get you free delivery on any orders over £50 at CCL if you quote BIT50 when you order. We've still been free to list the products we wanted to as well, and we've worked with CCL to make sure the prices are competitive. As the components are now available from one retailer, if you're ordering quite a lot of kit, you'll be able to get it from one place, which is more convenient and will save you money on shipping even if you don't spend as much as £50. Under the specs for each PC, you'll find two new buttons and here's what they do:

What Hardware Should I Buy? - June 2009
Takes you to a shopping basket on CCL filled with all the components of the PC, so you can build it yourself

What Hardware Should I Buy? - June 2009
Takes you to a shopping basket on CCL for the components pre-built as a fully working PC by CCL


We asked CCL to introduce themselves to you, and here's what they said:

"CCL Computers Ltd is an award winning IT company based in West Yorkshire, UK. CCL began trading in May 1995 and currently employs 65 people operating from a 25,000 sq ft warehouse just off junction 27 of M62, between Bradford and Leeds. It has an annual turnover of £21M and over 400K unique visitors read cclonline.com every month. Specialising in low price computer systems, notebooks, components, printers and upgrades, with next day delivery as standard, CCL has been voted the Best Online Retailer for the past three years running by the readers of bit-tech’s sister publication PC Pro."

We take our buyer's guide seriously here at bit-tech, and will continue to update it on a monthly basis, with up-to-date pricing and revised selections – a necessity when you factor in the ever fluctuating prices that make the enthusiast hardware market so volatile. However, do bear in mind that prices are fluid and while we do our best to find the very best deals on individual components at the start of every month, prices and availability can change at any time.