So, just what kind of desktop PC do you get if you only have a budget of £500? Well, if you choose the Zoostorm 1-3301 Economy PC you'll get a neat Micro ATX-cased PC, powered by - believe it or not - a dual core processor, along with a large hard drive and a half-way decent graphics card.

At the heart of this system sits one of Intel's original Dual Core processors; a Pentium D clocked at 2.8GHz sitting in an ECS P4M890T motherboard, which uses not the usual Intel chipset option but instead VIA's P4M890 / VT8237R+ chipset combination. Supporting this is 1GB of PC2-667MHz DDR2 memory, but if you need more the board has four DIMM slots that can support up to 4GB of memory.

Opening the case reveals a tidy build with all the cables neatly tied up. The size of the case limits the amount of spare drive space, though. There is a three-bay 3.5-inch drive cage which holds the hard drive and card reader, so you have space to add another hard drive if needed.

A nice plus point with this cage is that the mounts for both hard drives have rubber grommets which help keep the noise from drive vibration down to a minimum. This helps to keep the system quiet, and it has to be said that for a machine at this price it's very quiet indeed. The only other spare drive bay is a 5.25-inch one near the top of the case.

The graphics are powered by an Inno3D 7300GS Turbocache card which has 128MB of onboard memory, but can use up to 384MB of system memory to boost its memory up to 512MB, and produces a playable FarCry score of 46fps. This result came from testing FarCry at 1,024 by 768 pixels with all the detail settings turned to maximum; dropping either the resolution, the quality settings or both will give faster frame rates.

Included in the price is a 17-inch AOC LM-765 TFT monitor which has a native resolution of 1,280 by 1,024 pixels, along with a set of Genius SP Q06S speakers which are powered by the integrated 5.1 audio chipset.

The front bezel of the case has two audio ports, two USB ports and a Firewire port; the latter, though, isn't connected to the motherboard as the board doesn't have a FireWire header. There are five more USB ports on the rear panel.

For storage there is a fast 250GB Western Digital hard drive with an AOpen 16x DVD burner which also supports the burning of dual layer +R discs at 8x. Housed in the front bezel of the unit is a 52-in-1 card reader, which appears to support every conceivable flash card format.

PC Nextday backs the Zoostorm 1-3301 Economy PC with a years collect-and-return warranty.

Bet you never thought you could get an Intel Dual Core system for just £500. PC Nextday's 1-3301 Economy PC is decent first or second system with plenty of processing power to tackle most everyday tasks.