Best Desktop PCs of 2012
The competition was fierce this year, but PCWorld's editors agreed that this collection represents the best desktop PCs to come through the Lab in 2012. This chart represents a subset of our picks of the Best 100 Products of 2012. The machines are presented in the order in which the appeared on that list.
The Maingear Alpha 24 came in third on our Top 100 list. The machine's massive chassis accommodates a GeForce GTX 680 video card, a Core i7-3770K CPU, and up to 32GB of memory. You can play today's triple-A game titles, and upgrade every major component to play tomorrow's attractions, too.
Rated: Jun 27, 2012 11:00 AM
This diminutive, quiet, and extremely fast desktop PC landed at number 15 on our overall list. This is no budget box; rather, it's a polished, purpose-built tiny gaming system. The heavily overclocked Ivy Bridge processor, a fast SSD, and a GeForce GTX 680 video card combine to make this the fastest system of its size.
This computer's inventors see it as a means to an end: encouraging students to teach themselves how to program before they enter college. But the incredibly low price on this tiny and surprisingly powerful computer helped it land in the number 18 position on our complete list. We dig the noble goal, but we also like tech toys, and this one is hard to beat.
Rated: Aug 29, 2012 6:00 PM
Coming in at number 30 on our Top 100 list, the A720 squeezes into a base the size of a small pizza box. That allowed Lenovo to flatten its 27-inch, 10-point multitouch display to less than one inch thick. Lay the display completely flat and you can use the computer as if it were an oversize, stationary tablet.
Rated: Jul 5, 2012 6:00 PM
Given the choice between beauty and a beast, we'll almost always take the beast (at least when it comes to PCs). This affordable, high-performance PC is a strong general-purpose system and a decent gaming rig. Credit the fast Ivy Bridge CPU, Radeon HD 7850 GPU, SSD, Blu-ray drive, and 16GB of RAM for that. The MicroFlex 37B is number 32 on our complete Top 100 list.
Rated: Apr 9, 2012 2:25 PM
Maingear pulled out all the stops to build this super-powered PC, which tore through our benchmarks to generate a Worldbench 7 score of 205. That's 105 percent faster than our baseline. The top-shelf components in this rig should keep any gamer satisfied for at least a couple of years. We placed it at number 68 in our Top 100 list.
Best Gaming Desktop PC: Maingear Shift Super Stock
