While I want to provide as much as I can for everyone, I am only one person and I haven’t been able to develop the desktop computer section of this site as much as I would have liked. As a result, I’m not yet in a position to offer bespoke recommendations for desktop computers. Hopefully in time I will be able to offer the same for desktops as I do for laptops, but in the meantime, I have some more general recommendations that I will try to keep updated as much as possible.

In each category, I will list three options: the lowest price I would expect you to have to pay for a computer that is still competent; the highest performance computer that I would still put into this category and the middle option – the sweet spot. In most cases, the sweet spot will be my recommendation for that category as the one I would recommend to family and friends. However, I won’t recommend any computers that I consider to be completely overpriced or not up to the task, so all three recommendations should remain valid.

I will list the specifications that I believe would suit each class – the CPU, RAM and storage you should be looking for. I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible while retaining the key information you’ll need. Where I have written an x in a model number, it means that digit can be anything. For example, i5-12xxx could be i5-12400, i5-12600 or i5-12600K.

For those who just want to see what I have found at that price point, select one of the recommendations at the bottom of each box for an example that should be available at or near the price stated.

Please remember that desktop computers do not usually include monitor, keyboard and mouse unless stated.