Product Reviews

Just a year ago we were surprised to see Intel's fastest processors in budget and high-end systems at the same time. Now we're used to seeing Pentium II/450 systems for less than £1,000 but, while spending more won't necessarily buy you a faster machine, you can still get more for your money. If you start thinking about quality 17in monitors, second-generation DVD-ROM drives, good sound cards, modems, speakers and fast 3D graphics cards, you'll begin to get the picture.

This Dell XPS R400 is a typical example of the modern mid-range PC. While some users will be put off by the fact that it's not based on Intel's cutting edge Pentium II/450 CPU, others might be happier to sacrifice cutting-edge performance for a more rounded specification. In that case the XPS R400 won't disappoint.

It comes in Dell's current mini-tower case. Regular readers will remember our complaints about how difficult it was to get into some older Dell systems, thanks to a removable side panel that wasn't very easily removable. Dell has solved this problem and I managed to open the casing without any need for extra hands. Internally, there's little cause for complaint. The cabling is neat, access to the CPU and the two free DIMM sockets is unobstructed, while Dell has sensibly housed the 128Mb of SDRAM on a single DIMM. With only one fan at the back of the system, and a hefty heatsink on the CPU, the XPS R400 is quiet as well. Unfortunately, only two PCI slots and one ISA slot are available. As usual, one backplate is shared between the two bus types, so in effect there are only two free slots. However, you've got a lot of hardware already installed. There's a 16Mb STB AGP graphics card based on the nVIDIA Riva TNT chipset, a Turtle Beach Montego PCI sound card,

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a Cinemaster MPEG 2 decoder card and a US Robotics 56K modem. The drive bays are fairly well packed as well, with a Toshiba DVD-ROM drive, an Iomega Zip drive, a floppy drive and a 14.4Gb IBM hard disk all fitted, leaving room for one 3.5in and one 5.25in device on the front panel, and a single internal 3.5in device.

Having gone to the bother of adding hardware DVD video support and one of the best 3D graphics solutions on the market, it would be a shame had Dell shipped a poor monitor, but the Nokia-produced 17in Trinitron display is quite superb. While most manufacturers are shipping 19in models at this price point, there's something to be said for a good-quality 17in monitor. It's physically much more manageable and, at a resolution of 1,024 « 768 with a steady 85Hz refresh rate, it's ergonomically viable too. The picture on offer from this particular model is sharp, bright and colourful.

Audio won't disappoint either. The Montego sound card has a good range of wavetable sounds for MIDI playback, and offers A3D support for pseudo 3D sound effects in games. It's well matched with a three-piece set of Altec Lansing speakers. Thanks to a hefty subwoofer and a decent pair of satellite speakers, DVD audio and the output from the Montego comes across with perfect clarity, a solid bass and a degree of warmth.

DVD playback is fairly good. While the image suffers from occasional jaggies, it's smooth and quite watchable. I didn't spot any really nasty artefacts or problems synchronising the soundtrack with the video. For watching an entire film, it's unlikely to beat sitting down with a television and a dedicated player, but it's fine as a PC solution.

I'm not so impressed with the keyboard. The action is a bit light and rattly, and could do with being more positive.

The XPS-R400 comes with Office 97 SBE pre-installed and a copy of McAfee VirusScan. Performance isn't anything to write home about, but there's still enough power on offer to push 2D applications, while the STB graphics card should keep this season's hit games running smoothly. For nearly £1,500 there will be some for whom nothing less than Intel's latest and greatest will do but, as far as I'm concerned, the overall high quality of the components that come supplied with this system more than makes up for the slightly slower processor.