Product Reviews

You could be forgiven for thinking Intel only produces Pentiums -that's all you seem to see advertised. But they also have an entire second range of chips called Celeron, and this used to be the hero of budget buyers. That is, until AMD's Duron came on the scene, offering even more power for even less money.

But while Celeron is down, it's certainly not out. This month, the cut-price chip is revamped and reborn, making it a natural choice of processor for the aptly-named Evesham.com Evolution 1.7.

So, what's all the fuss about? Well, firstly the Celeron's clock speed has made a big jump from a previous high of 1.3 to 1.7GHz. This has been possible because the chip is no longer based on Pentium III but is now a cut-down version of Intel's latest Pentium 4 design.

What makes Celeron different from Pentium 4 is the amount of speed-boosting Level 2 cache built into the chip. The Celeron has 128K, the Pentium 4, 512K. Also, the cheaper chip will only run on a 400MHz system bus, rather than Pentium 4's latest 533MHz.

Should you ever wish to upgrade, the Evesham will serve you well, thanks to the use of an Asus P4S533 motherboard. Based on the new SiS 645 chipset, it supports a 533MHz system bus and faster DDR333 or even DDR400 memory. So when you feel this PC is getting a bit slow, all you'll need to do is stick in a Pentium 4 and better memory.

For now, the Evolution 1.7 is equipped with 256Mb of PC2100 DDR RAM with two of three memory slots available for upgrading. There are a total of six PCI slots on the motherboard, and four of them are free for additions. The integrated network port means that this system is ready for connection to a LAN or to a broadband connection. If you haven't yet either the money or desire for high speed Internet access, a modem is included, which conforms to the very latest V.92 standard.

Sadly, the Celeron isn't blisteringly quick, scoring only 2,241 in our 2D benchmarks. This month's Lab Test winner, Easy PC, scored 4,189. This didn't shock me, though, as Pentium 4s have always been far better at 3D graphics than mundane 2D applications. In 3DMark 2001, performance was more impressive, with a score of 6,336 - a whisker slower

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than the Easy PC. This is also thanks, in no small part, to the graphics card, a Radeon 8500LE. Like the Celeron, this is a mildly cut-down version, with a 250MHz core chip, compared with the Radeon 8500's 275MHz part. It's still a cracking card, offering full DirectX 8.1 support, which means that the Radeon will be able to make future games look as good as they should.

Viewing these will be a pleasure, thanks to an excellent 17in monitor, the LG 795FT. This gives a sharp image at 85Hz refresh rate, even when running at a resolution of 1,280x1,024. The monitor looks great, too, with neat touch-sensitive buttons and simple controls.

And not only will games look good, they'll sound great too. This is thanks to the C-Media chip, which provides up to six channels of audio, and makes full Dolby Digital surround sound possible, through three stereo outputs.

To make the most of this, Evesham has included a set of Creative Inspire 5300 speakers, which give a real punch to movies and music. The set consists of five small satellite speakers and a large subwoofer. There's a wired remote control for adjusting the volume too.

To complete the entertainment set-up, Evesham has included a 16-speed Samsung DVD-ROM drive and Cyberlink's PowerDVD 4 software.

The storage capabilities of the system are equally impressive. The 60Gb Maxtor drive has shrunk to 55.8Gb in formatting, but this is still more than enough space for even the greatest collectors of big files, such as video editors.

Indeed, with the inclusion of a three-port FireWire card, and Pinnacle Studio Seven video editing software preinstalled, you'll be on your way to your first Director's Oscar as soon as you set the machine up. You can also use FireWire for devices like scanners and external hard disks.

LG's excellent recordable CD drive is next. This particular model picked up a Top 50 award in our last CD burner group test. It'll write to CD-Rs at 32-speed and CD-R/Ws at 10-speed. What's more, with the inclusion of Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5, the Evesham will make short work of creating CDs.

Finally, there's the software bundle which starts with Windows XP Home Edition. You'll also find a copy of the StarOffice work suite and Bigfix, which automatically seeks out updates for your PC.

For £850, this PC provides bags of great features and is highly upgradeable, so it should give you long service. It may cost £50 more than Systemax's similar Reliance C1700EB, but it shows more polish, making it worth the extra money.

The only problem then is that while the performance is swift, Duron-based systems are even faster - as demonstrated in this month's Labs. Buy this PC and you'll have a nagging feeling that you could have got more oomph for your money with an AMD.