Right, the old one's as slow as treacle in midwinter, and when it comes to partaking of a rip'n'burn session, forget it. Blue screens and screen freezes and auto shutdowns all over the place.
Also, there's been a 'domestic reshuffle'. Since she's no longer here, and I wish to change things around to avoid the visual reminders, I feel a new PC might be in order.
I need none of the peripherals right now, except maybe a webcam/mic and external hard drive for file transfer purposes, but if there are packages available, I'll consider.

So, what's the best option? I have a PCWorld along the street, as well as a Priceless Computing shop. I suppose there are other high street/retail park retailers too, but my needs are these:
internet access – fast
memory – big enough to be capable of quick work (is that 'RAM'?)
storage – main files will be music (1000+ CDs, and growing)
disc drives – 2 CD for ripping/burning; 1 DVD for watching – not sure if I wanna rip or burn 'em
card reader for photos/sim/SD etc
as for gaming, I've not been a fan so far, but now I'm single I may have more time on my hands, and if it distracts me from the internet porn that can only be a good thing ;¬l

Beyond that I start to get even more confused.
I have a budget of circa £500. Is there a better time to buy a new PC (pre-xmas or post-xmas, for example)?

I'm in Glasgow if anyone local knows someone who does it for a living and could custom build.

Hope someone out there can advise. Thanks in advance.

PS this current PC seems so slow that I'd better just, for the record, state today's date as Sat. 19th Sept. 2009!

I would go with this and throw on a monitor in the customisation part.

Priceless Computing – I thought they would have gone bust years ago 😉 I left Glasgow in '98 and it was a dodgy place back then!

Before you buy mesh google mesh reviews or the like!!

This looks like a decent deal:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/633580

Not brilliant graphics though, but will play older stuff fine and you can drop in a newer card later if you wanted. Excellent CPU for the encoding work though.

Else Dell have some cracking deals direct at the moment – it's a good time of year to buy, the back-to-school rush has ended, the christmas buying hasn't started, and lots of people are holding off for Windows 7. However if you buy now you'll get Vista and you just post off for an upgrade CD once Win7 releases properly in a month or so.

Don't buy a pc from pcworld unless you are the kind of person who thinks buying a bike from asda is a good idea. look for deals on-line and check reviews on google.

Wait a couple of weeks to get something with Windows 7 already installed so you don't have to go through the pain.

For Windows 7 2GB RAM is fine, but you may want 4GB if you are going to do lots of image manipulation or gaming.

For gaming you will need a good graphics accelerator but you might be able to add this later
You will get a DVD drive and a hard disk. Anything else will be external. Get a really good screen if you want to do lots of image stuff
Internet connection speed is dependent on your ISP
Go for a main brand like Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo etc

Aria do some good ones

Overclockers are good as well

500 hundred notes from any of the above will get you a very good system. I would go for a PC that has a free upgrade to windows 7 included. Vista runs on 4gig of memory very well. Windows 7 positively rockets along.

Thank you folks.
All good suggestions, kindly made.
That name 'Overclockers' seems familiar, from a work colleague I think. Perhaps give that some more investigation.

However, RaveyDavey's advice on avoiding PCWorld seems a bit harsh. Asda sell more than just bikes, whereas PCWorld sell, ….. well, PCs and their accoutrements, and one would've thought that they'd know their onions, so to speak.
I'd be interested to hear more about the reasons why not to shop there.

Thanks again for your help though. I'm sure I'll be posting excited new threads if/when the new sytem is up and running.

Cheers all.

if you want something a bit different but your not into games etc but MAY plug it into the tv and want something a bit quieter etc look at this

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/9606805/Acer-Aspire-Revo-Intel-Atom-N230-1-6GHz-2GB-160GB-Vista-Home-Premium-Nettop-Desktop-PC/Product.html

i know it's play.com but they are the cheapest around

free upgrade to windows 7 (which i run on my laptop and is excellent) we are looking to use it as our home media server. i have a super powerful shoebox PC it's noisy and clunky compared to the new net-tops that have come about.