Product Reviews

I was pleasantly surprised by last month's Evesham Quest C800. It was quick, had plenty of features and a low price thanks to its new bargain-basement Via C3 processor. Indeed, the Evesham was the first £499 PC I've seen that I might recommend buying. Previously, systems this cheap tended to be made from outmoded components.

Now it seems that everyone wants to buck the trend. This month Compute-IT has a go with its ValueMax Office Pro, and right here we have the Easy PC C3-750: a 750MHz PC with a 17in monitor, recordable CD drive, fast 32Mb 3D graphics card and stereo speakers with subwoofer - all for a bargain £499 plus VAT.

Like the Evesham, it's based on the Via C3, a new low-cost processor which fits into the same Via Socket 370 motherboards that support the Intel Celeron and Pentium III chips. In this case, the 750MHz processor is backed up by Via's Apollo Pro 133 chipset and a sensible 128Mb of PC133 SDRAM. And as for that fast 3D graphics card - it's the Video-Logic Vivid XS!, currently listed in our Top 50 as a best buy.

The processor might be slower than the Evesham's, but that's still a hot specification for the price. And, Easy PC doesn't stop there. You really have no right to expect a CD-R/W drive for £499, but the C3-750 packs in an unbranded 32x/8x/4x drive and a 12-speed Samsung DVD-ROM drive as well.

Equally impressively, the C3-750 trumps the Quest C800's peripherals. The 17in Relisys monitor isn't brilliant by any means, but it has a flat screen, reasonable focus and a solid 100Hz refresh rate at 1,024x768. Put it next to a 17in Trinitron monitor and it looks poor, but if we had to choose between the Relisys and the Evesham's gloomy display, we'd choose the Relisys every time.

And the same goes for the C3-750's Genius speakers.

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The Quest C800's Creative stereo speakers were about as basic as you could get, making Easy PC's twin satellite and subwoofer set seem luxurious by comparison. Audiophiles might sneer at the boxy sound, overly strident bass and lack of top-end definition, but these are perfectly adequate for playing games or watching DVD movies. Flashy surround sound would be wasted here anyway, as the C3-750 gets its sounds from the bog-standard integrated Via AC'97 audio built into the motherboard.

The C3-750 even gets a bit fancy with the mouse - a competent Genius knock-off of the much loved Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical.

Now, a cheap system should always allow room for upgrades, and the C3-750 doesn't let you down here, either. With integrated audio and the 56K modem on an AMR riser card, all five PCI slots are free, and you also get one free 3.5in drive bay, one 5.25in bay, and two spare DIMM slots for adding RAM. Some companies could also learn from the tidiness inside the Easy PC's case - impeccable touches such as having the IDE ribbon cables being clipped to the side of the case where they can't obstruct future upgrades or the airflow from the system fan.

Sadly, after all this praise there's some bad news coming: if you're looking for fun and games, the C3-750 just doesn't cut the mustard. The first sign that something was wrong happened when we tried watching a DVD. The playback using the InterVideo WinDVD software player was surprisingly jerky. More seriously, it seems that the C3 and the usually excellent Kyro II chip used in the Vivid XS! board don't make an effective team. A score of 1115 in 3DMark 2000 is barely forgivable, but 285 in 3DMark 2001 is simply pitiful. By simply sticking in an nVidia GeForce2 MX board, we instantly boosted the 3DMark 2001 score to 954. It seems that the Kyro II needs a more powerful CPU to maintain high 3D speeds.

With a score of 2311 in our application benchmarks, the Easy PC seems to be a good buy for everyday word processing and Internet browsing, but even here it's had its thunder stolen. The Compute-IT ValueMax Office Pro offers similar components, and then throws a basic inkjet printer into the mix. The Evesham is the faster budget games machine, and the ValueMax the better bet for general home office use. That leaves the Easy PC as a good low-budget system, but one that's been outflanked on both sides.