Lab

£499 PCs

There's no need to spend a fortune to get a brilliant PC any more. Blistering power and superb peripherals can be had for less than £500 these days, blowing away the stereotype that cheaper machines are sluggish and slow.

In these budget PCs you'll find everything from the latest processors and graphics cards to surround-sound speakers, half-terabyte hard disks and a 21in TFT - defying the usual expectation of what goes into a bargain-basement machine.

Just as impressive is that most of these PCs are well-rounded, with very few major compromises. Where an explosive graphics card has been included, for example, it hasn't meant a low-end processor, and a 500GB hard disk ripe for a music collection hasn't led to the exclusion of speakers.

The eight manufacturers to submit systems this month have aimed at different audiences, however. VeryPC's offering is aimed squarely at the business or ecologically minded consumer. Eclipse, on the other hand, has chosen to lure cost-conscious gamers with a GeForce 9800 GTX graphics card.

Despite the mind-boggling variety of components in this Labs, though, every PC comes with at least a 19in monitor, keyboard and mouse, so it can be used straight out of the box.

Read on and you'll find a PC to meet your needs, whether work, movies, music or games are a priority. They're all covered for less than £500, and none will disappoint.