http://www.novatech.co.uk/novate.../ barebones.html

and

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novate...ch/ bundles.html

sometimes have some cost-effective gems for upgrading on the cheap. Novatech's where I get all my upgrades from anyway.

There's always scan.co.uk as an option too. Their "today only" section sometimes has the perfect option.

Without knowing your current system spec it would be hard to say for certain but whenever a PC is slow my first thoughts are: memory upgrade first, then check hard drive space where the paging file is located to make sure that's not a bottleneck (and remedy if it is with a new drive and paging file relocated if needs be). With modern PCs the processor speed seems to be less and less of an issue - just how fast do you want MS Word to start? - but if you're a games fan then graphics card would be next to dump off processing time.
Mark | Homepage | 18.02.08 - 12:13 pm | #

Mark: I just ordered This from the Maplin website. £67 all in, and I'll have a 3700 Athlon 64 which is a darn sight better then the Sempron 2200 I'm running now. As for RAM I'm on 1Gb, and I have a 512Mb X1650 Graphics card, so this should really run like lightning.
Rik | Homepage | 18.02.08 - 12:36 pm | #

I went to Coventry once. It was closed.
Scaryduck | Homepage | 18.02.08 - 4:29 pm | #

PC Format magazine this month (feb) had an article on dx10 upgrade for about £290, that included mem, graphics card, case, power supply and cpu
Wald | 18.02.08 - 9:15 pm | #

Scaryduck - I stayed in Coventry for about 5 weeks three years back. It was closed then too.
Aled | 22.02.08 - 11:24 am | #

I too recommend Novatech's bundles.
Quentin | Homepage | 24.02.08 - 7:26 pm | #