Product Reviews

Just looking at the specifications on paper, it should be clear that the Octan stands head and shoulders above the other £699 PCs. In fact, there's hardly anything that separates it from the £999 machines, save the 80GB hard disk.

The biggest surprise is the Radeon All-in-Wonder 9800SE graphics card. This not only provides plenty of 3D acceleration, but also an integrated TV tuner. Add features like timeshifting and DVD playback and you might well be tempted to upgrade the stereo speakers for a full surround-sound experience.

Hooked up to the All-in-Wonder is the second surprise: a 17in TFT panel from NEC. This has a native resolution of 1,280 x 1,024, which gives a 40 per cent increase in Desktop area over a 15in TFT. Every other £699 manufacturer included a 15in screen as per our minimum requirements.

Then there's the Athlon XP 2800+ CPU and 512MB of PC3200 memory, which powered the Carrera to 2.04 in our

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2D benchmarks. Not only did this trounce the other £699 machines, but also beat everything except Systemax's Athlon 64-equipped PC. Practically the same is true of the excellent 3DMark2001 SE score of 13,827 - only Holly, Systemax and Watford were faster.

You can take advantage of all this power right away, as 11 games are included, catering for almost all tastes. Carrera chooses a Microsoft SideWinder joystick to complement them. It's a fairly simple affair with eight buttons and a throttle control - there's no 'hat' control or force feedback. The final element of the extras bundle is a Creative Webcam NX. This might only have a resolution of 352 x 288 against Microland's 640 x 480 webcam, but it's adequate for Internet use.

Despite so much budget being spent on performance, Carrera SSC includes fast CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives to keep up with the rest of the £699 bunch. With these in place, there's still good expansion potential. Two 5.25in bays are free, as well as five 3.5in bays and four power connectors. Thankfully, the Octan is quiet thanks to an 80mm fan cooling the CPU. A second 80mm fan expels hot air from the rear, while the graphics card and power supply bring the fan total to four.

Other £699 PCs might have bigger hard disks and more speakers, but the Octan 2800SE still offers better value, especially when you consider the three year, on-site warranty and longer support hours. All this adds up to a fantastic system: if you're after a PC bargain for Christmas, this is the one to buy.