Dell Dimension 8100 1.7GHz

Poor old Intel. For the first time in years it's having to sit back and watch AMD's Athlon outperform its equivalently clocked Pentiums. Playing the numbers game probably helps - it isn't hard to convince the public that a 1.5GHz Pentium 4 must be faster than a 1.33GHz Athlon - but, as we saw last month with the Evesham Evolution P7 (reviewed issue 80, p144), more megahertz doesn't necessarily guarantee market-leading performance. Luckily, Dell has remained loyal to Intel and continues to put together high-class systems like the Dimension 8100.

Take the case, for example. Its smart black and silver styling is consistent with the rest of the system, and it's functional too. Take off the easily removable side panel and there's plenty of room for expansion. You could happily fit another 3.5in hard disk or a 5.25in device below the CD-RW and DVD-ROM. Admittedly, the RIMM sockets are hidden behind the power supply, but it can be manoeuvred out of the way with the release of a catch, so there's little to complain about.

Dell hasn't been stingy with the peripherals either. The Dimension comes complete with a black keyboard, featuring a few handy shortcut buttons, and a high-quality 17in monitor. This uses a flat Trinitron tube, delivering sharp images with no loss of corner focus, bright colours and rock-solid 100Hz refresh rates, even when you push the resolution up to 1,280 x 1,024.

If you're looking for solid desktop audio, you'll be perfectly satisfied with the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card and Harmon/Kardon speaker set. The Santa Cruz is better known here as VideoLogic's Sonic Fury (reviewed issue 72, p197). It's an excellent all-rounder, with support for the usual APIs, superb sound quality and the useful versa-jack, which operates as a second stereo line in, third stereo line out or an AC-3 digital output, depending on your needs.

The Harmon/Kardon speakers, meanwhile, might look weird but they're surprisingly good. The unobtrusive desktop satellites and compact subwoofer kick out a clear sound at a reasonable volume, and the only thing that gives away the small size is a noticeable lack of mid-range warmth.

Software hasn't been neglected either - you get the Microsoft Works Suite 2000 bundle, including Word 2000 and AutoRoute 2000, plus DVD playback courtesy of InterVideo WinDVD. That hardly makes a dent in the 60Gb Maxtor hard disk, while that other staple of modern PC storage, the CD-RW, is here in the shape of an LG drive that will write at up to 12-speed.

With digital camcorders more commonplace, it's a shame this Dimension doesn't have IEEE-1394 support out of the box, but otherwise there's no shortage of sockets. There's 10/100BaseTX Ethernet, a V.90 modem and you also get four USB ports, along with the old-school serial, parallel and PS/2 ports.

In fact, even when you get to the core specification, there's little cause for grumbling. The 1.7GHz Pentium 4 has 256Mb of RDRAM for company, which any software will have trouble straining in the foreseeable future. Then we come to the star of the show - nVIDIA's GeForce3 graphics chip on a Dell OEM card. Thanks to this, the Dimension is a veritable 3D speed demon, scoring 5,713 in 3DMark2001 at 1,024 x 768 in 32-bit colour. This actually beats last month's GeForce3-featured NEC Direction SM1300A+ (reviewed issue 80, p147) with its 1.33GHz Athlon and 256Mb of DDR SDRAM. The Dell's card has slightly newer drivers, but it just goes to show that the Pentium 4 is still a strong 3D performer.