Zora Paris II LE Sempron 2500+ Arcadia CA

Rating: 7/10

Budget PCs have come a long way recently. With AMD introducing their Sempron budget range, prices for a decent starter system have continued to drop. One such offering is this base unit from Zora, which could be just the ticket for someone after an ultra-low cost brand new workhorse PC. As budget systems go, it's well equipped too. It comes with an AMD Sempron 2500+ processor (running at 1.7GHz), 256MB DDR RAM and features onboard sound and graphics. The motherboard is an Asrock K7S41GX which includes an AGP x8 slot, and two RAM slots which take DDR 333/266 up to 2GB worth, so plenty of potential there for future upgrade. The onboard graphics have a maximum share of 64MB, so whilst you won't be able to play the latest games or take on heavy multimedia work on it, it will easily get you started for pretty much everything else. There's nothing radical or exciting about the case, although it does feature useful front USB ports.

The system comes with a 52x CD-ROM drive, although we'd suggest you pay the minimal premium for at least a CD writer instead. That said, there are three expansion slots there which could easily be filled with further optical drives over time. Likewise, the 40GB hard drive is good enough to get you started, and the inside of the PC has room for you to add more storage as and when you desire. In fact, the insides of the system are extremely neat and tidy, showing that real care has been put into building the machine. It also helps keeps things open and straightforward for future upgrades. Whilst you'll need to add an OS, keyboard, mouse and a screen to the set up, the price here what you get is still obscenely cheap. If you're not looking for a system that will play Doom 3 or make Toy Story 3, then it's a commendable choice, and one that proves you don't need to spend the earth to get a capable, well put together PC system. Recommended.

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