Labs

Asus's AMD-based T3-M2NC1PV is the cheapest barebones kit here at only £100 including VAT, but it looks sophisticated thanks to its silver and white case. The single-piece case cover is a little tricky to remove, but once inside, the T3 is easy to assemble. The instruction manual is clearly illustrated with black-and-white diagrams that note how many screws have to be removed and in which direction they have to be unscrewed.

A cage containing the hard disk bays and 20W power supply swings out of the way to give unobstructed access to the processor socket and RAM slots. There's a PCI slot for expansion cards, such as TV tuners and

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wireless networking adaptors. There's also a PCI-E x16 slot, but you can't add a full-length graphics card as the memory card reader is in the way. As the reader also contains the power switch connector, you can't remove it as you wouldn't be able to turn your PC on.

Asus has supplied its own processor heatsink that screws into the motherboard, rather than using the standard clip fixtures usually found on AMD heatsinks. You'll need to use a long crosshead screwdriver to reach the screws. Unfortunately, it was noticeably loud and the non-standard fittings make it difficult to find a replacement cooler that isn't as noisy.

The T3-M2NC1PV's performance in our Windows benchmarks was in line with what we'd expect and it tied with Shuttle's SN68PTG6 Deluxe as the fastest AM2-based barebones kit in our group. As expected, the integrated graphics weren't powerful enough for playing the latest games.

Asus's T3-M2NC1PV is an attractive option if you want a cheap barebones PC system for building an office PC. It's noisy, though, and unless you have to use an AM2 processor, Asus's own T3-P94GC is a better choice. It's almost identical to the T3-M2NC1PV but it uses Intel rather than AMD processors and it isn't as noisy.