Product Reviews

Carrera has supplied some solid systems over the last few months, scoring well in our benchmarks and also on value for money. The Octan M800 upholds this reputation.

At the Octan's heart beats an Athlon/800 processor, backed by 128Mb of SDRAM - albeit of the PC100 variety - and a 3D Power GeForce2 MX graphics card. These gave the M800 an above average ranking in our 2D benchmark suite and a slightly below-average result in 3DMark2000. Since all these components are more or less standard across the board, the results aren't surprising.

It's the other componentry that sets the Octan M800 apart from the competition. A Panasonic SR-8585 eight-speed DVD-ROM drive and a quad-speed LG CD-RW fill two of the 5.25in bays, while a 20.5Gb Western Digital hard disk uses one of the 3.5in bays. The Biostar motherboard forms the backbone of the system, which is based on the VIA Apollo KT133 chipset,

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and Carrera takes advantage of its AMR slot, installing a 56K modem. In the visual department, Carrera has chosen the 17in Iiyama Vision Master Pro 411 ahead of the PC Pro award-winning Vision Master Pro 410.

The only component that doesn't impress us is the basic integrated AC97 audio, but at least the Altec Lansing ACS33 three-piece speaker set, with its subwoofer and high-quality sound output goes some way to making up for this shortfall. After taking stock of the software bundle, which includes Lotus SmartSuite Millennium and Windows ME, the package is complete.

Build quality remains as good as ever, and we still praise the case for having quick-release drive bays, even for the 3.5in drives. It also has two free 5.25in front panel bays and one internal 3.5in bay. All five PCI slots are free, as is the single ISA slot. Two free DIMM sockets allow an extra 512Mb to be added for a total of 640Mb. So, the M800 Octan has some of the best upgrade potential on test. The final thoughtful extras are the two case fans which keep temperatures down to a minimum.

As ever with price-point Labs, this month was a close-run thing. Carrera's generous two-year, on-site warranty really adds to its feature points, but in the end it was the CD-RW drive versus the Evesham Origin 900's complete lack of removable storage that helped to make up our minds. We'd rather have the extra capacity and versatility of a CD-RW, and this feature is just enough to make the Octan M800 a winner.