Look at that thing on the cover! What is it? A nuclear power station? A Combine base from Half-Life 2? A rejected robot from Transforminators? No, it's a PC! A hulking great compartmentalised beast of a PC. In ten years, all PCs will look like this. Even your Mum's. Adam Oxford's produced a complete guide to future tech, so you'll know exactly what to spend your cash on to build the PC of the future.

Of course, the most important part of your PC is the CPU. There are a fair few bargains out there from AMD and Intel. Jeremy Laird has given them a run for their money, and written masses on each and every one. An essential guide for now, and the future. Jeremy also tried Intel's mobile Core i7 and Core i5 chips, which feature integrated GPUs and will be heading to a laptop near you soon.

System Optimisers are the new anti-virus software, and they claim to be able to speed up your PC, sort out your registry and prove the existence of God. But can they do any of these things? I put six to the test, and the results are somewhat surprising.

If you're going to be living in the house of the future with your newly-optimised PC, you'll want to install some kind of home network setup. Neil Mohr's gives you his expert advice on how exactly you should do it. Oh, and he also made us a USB sound card for, er, Make.

It's a good month for games, especially sequels. Me and Dave rolled up our sleeves and grunted our way through the follow-ups to Bioshock, Mass Effect, Stalker and IL-2. Dave also had a dabble with Star Trek Online, and if deep space shenanigans are your cup of tea Simon Pickstock leads you by the hand through Eve Dominion. And, if that's not enough, Richard Cobbett has pulled together a list of the best games that may have passed you by over the last few years.

All this, and loads more in the highly-futuristic PC Format 237, which you'll find in your local moonshop.