Labs

Luxury £599 PCs

At the end of each review, there are five star ratings: one for Performance, another for Quietness, a third for Features & Design, then Value for Money and a final Overall rating. We don't just pluck these figures out of the air: they're calculated using a complex array of benchmark results, objective scores and subjective quality ratings.

Performance

We put each machine through its paces in a rigorous series of tests using real-world applications such as Word, Access and Photoshop, using the same tests for PCs and laptops.

The overall 2D result is relative to a score of 1.00 from our reference PC - a dual-core 3.2GHz Pentium D 840 system with 1GB of PC3200 RAM, a 10,000rpm Western Digital Raptor hard disk and an Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT graphics card. If a machine scores 1.50, it's 50% faster than our reference machine overall.

We test the 3D gaming capability of each PC using Call of Duty 2. We have three test settings to cater for PCs of differing power. Our Low settings consist of a 1,024 x 768 resolution with no antialiasing or anisotropic filtering and Normal textures. For Medium, we up the resolution to 1,280 x 1,024, with High textures, 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering. The High setting is a punishing 1,680 x 1,050 resolution with Extra textures added to the mix.

We also use the hyper-intensive Crysis benchmark utility, which pushes the latest cards to the limit of their abilities.

Quietness

Unlike any other UK magazine, we send every PC in the Labs to a dedicated testing facility, Intertek, to find out how noisy it is. Tests are carried out in an acoustically treated listening room, using a precision sound-level meter with an "A-weighted" audio filter. The results are in dBA and, to put a rough perspective on measurements, levels of 25dBA can be compared to the background noise of a bedroom at night, while 45dBA represents background noise in a typical living room. Results are based on four readings: front and side while idle, and the same again but under intensive use. Intertek also measures the power consumption of each PC.

Features & Design

The Features & Design score takes into account an array of objective measurements, such as the hard disk capacities and setup, the capabilities of the optical drive and the inclusion of wireless, TV tuners and other extras. Warranties are examined and each company's performance in PCPro's Reliability & Service Awards 2007 is taken into account.

More subjective ratings are given to extras such as speaker sets and monitors, which can't be scored objectively. In these cases, a panel of judges rate them ona variety of criteria, such as style, build and sound/image quality, and the results are averaged.

Value for Money

The Value for Money score is based ona weighted average of the Performance, Quietness and Features & Design scores. We then factor in exactly how much each machine costs (including delivery) for a bang-per-buck result.

Overall

The Overall rating is a straight average of the Performance, Quietness, Features & Design and Value for Money scores. Occasionally, it may appear higher or lower than expected due to rounding.