ABS Awesome 3450

WHAT'S HOT: Speed has always been a hallmark of an ABS system, and the company's Awesome 3450 did not disappoint us. Powered by a 2.167-GHz AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Barton processor and a gigabyte of DDR400 SDRAM, it turned in a scorching score of 133 on our PC WordBench 4 tests--one of our top benchmark scores to date.

The 3450 also has the chops for some good fun: The system's ATI Radeon 9700 Pro-based graphics board delivered top-notch frame rates at all resolutions. We saw bright and smooth colors running the game Return to Castle Wolfenstein and when watching a DVD movie. Moreover, the Logitech Z-640 speaker set bundled with the ABS delivered robust bass notes and crisp trebles in our audio tests.

WHAT'S NOT: Our gripes are minor. The 3450 has a modernlooking case, but it has old-fashioned screws that you must remove to open it and swap out components. Also, this PC doesn't offer the handy port placement we've seen on other systems. Though it has two FireWire ports on the back, it doesn't provide any on the front panel. Nor does it offer front-mounted audio ports, although we found empty holes for them. And the two USB 2.0 ports placed up front are located behind a somewhat flimsy door that's too far down on the case for easy reach.

WHAT ELSE: The Samsung SyncMaster 955DF, a 19-inch CRT with a flat shadow mask tube, produced rich colors and accurate skin tones displaying our test photo. Text was less impressive, however. Though all font sizes were very legible, text had a gray rather than black cast, which made it a bit harder to see.

We noticed an unusual design frill: The power and reset buttons are built into a grip handle that arches across the case's top section, making them easier to reach. The case has a slate-gray tone, and the bottom half curves out a bit; the design is less boxy than other low-cost systems'. The casters on the bottom of the case make it very easy to move around.

The Microsoft keyboard is ivory tone with dark-gray accents and has a detachable palm rest; it includes eight hot-keys for launching Internet-related applications, and large oval buttons for adjusting volume settings and navigating CD tracks.

UPSHOT: The ABS 3450 is a good fit for speed-fixated power users who are more concerned with price than having bleeding-edge features.

SUMMARY

ABS Awesome 3450 $