Product Reviews

Compared to the futuristic looks of the Tablet PCs from Compaq and Viewsonic and the cubic chic of the Evesham E-Style C2.2, all of which we have looked at this month, the Systemax is just another dull looking beige box. However, the beauty of the Systemax lies not in its appearance but in the relatively modest outlay required to become the proud owner of a well-specified, decent-performing computer.

To achieve this feat of frugality, some corners have had to be cut but nevertheless the end result is far from shabby.

Inside the no-nonsense beige exterior is an MSI motherboard based on the KT400 chipset, which among its talents features support for high-speed PC2700 memory. A stick of this sits in one of the three DIMM slots. The Athlon XP 2100+ is pretty modest by current standards and runs at a clock speed of 1.73GHz. This propels the Systemax to a 2D benchmark score of 1060 - which, while far from what can be achieved by the fastest Athlon XPs available, is still enough even for heavy-duty tasks such as video editing.

The Systemax has a total of six PCI slots, four of which are unused. One slot is taken up by a blanking plate with audio connectors. This adds digital outputs, as well as centre and rear speaker outputs, providing all the connections you'll need for a 5.1 surround sound speaker setup. There's also a digital output so you can wire the Systemax straight up to a surround-sound decoder and amplifier.

Sadly, the Cyber Acoustic speakers supplied with the machine don't do the audio capabilities of this computer justice. For starters, they lack a centre speaker, so you can only experience games and DVDs in quadraphonic sound. They're also rather lacking in the bass department.

The motherboard provides no fewer than six USB 2 ports, with two of these conveniently located at the front of the case. In addition,

ADVERTISEMENT

Systemax has gone to the trouble of adding two FireWire ports. This is good news if you have a DV camcorder, as it means the PC is ready for the transfer of footage over this super-fast connection. Of course, this would be no use if you couldn't do anything with the footage, so Systemax has included Cyberlink's Power Director 2.5DE.

If you get heavily into video editing, you'll probably want to add a separate hard disk to hold all your footage, and there's an empty bay above the existing one. In the mean time the 80GB Samsung drive should be easily enough to keep you going. It spins at a healthy 7,200rpm, helping it to access data quickly.

The fast Samsung CD-R/W is another bonus. You can use it for backing up data, making compilation CDs or even put movies on discs that friends can play in their DVD players.

Graphics are provided by an ATI Radeon 9100 card. In fact, this is just ATI's fastest card of last year, the Radeon 8500, renamed - a classic example of mutton dressed as lamb. Don't get too upset, though: its performance is still decent, with a 3DMark 2001 score of 8755 - enough for a good old gaming session with smooth graphics. Old as it is, the Radeon still outperforms the integrated graphics of this month's nForce-based Lab Test machines.

The other benefit of this graphics card is that it has DVI and S-Video out connectors, allowing you to hook the PC up to a posh flat-panel monitor and TV, respectively.

The Radeon graphics card pumps out the visuals to a 17in EX700F CTX monitor. This, again, has been around for a long time - but that's no bad thing. Its image quality, though not as sharp and crisp as some we've seen, is far from disappointing. It'll run easily at a refresh rate of 85Hz - that is, it can redraw the image on the screen 85 times a second, so as to avoid any perceptible flicker. This means it won't leave your eyes tired - and you reaching for the Paracetamol.

Echoing the no-frills approach of the monitor, the keyboard and mouse are nothing fancy - rebadged versions of Logitech's basic model. They're comfy, though, with a positive action to the keys of the keyboard.

With more memory and better speakers, the Systemax would be an outstanding PC at this price. As it is, it's still an excellent budget PC, striking just the right balance between price and performance. If you're after a no-frills PC with enough oomph to play 3D games, this is the one to buy.