What's New in the Top 100

For this month's reviews of new systems, click the links below.

• Top 20 Power Desktops
  
  
• Top 20 Budget Desktops
  
  
• Top 10 Notebook PCs
  
  
• Top 10 Home PCs
  
  

In quicker succession than this summer's string of overhyped movies, new and ever-faster processors roll off Intel's assembly lines. In expeditious fashion, the chip maker's new Pentium III-550 processor zooms onto the Top 20 Power Desktops chart. Like many a high-budget Hollywood blockbuster, PCs housing the PIII-550 chip garner mixed reviews but also create enough buzz to grab your attention.

Speed III

Overall, PCs equipped with the new processor run about 10 percent faster than their PIII-500 siblings and cost $300 to $800 more. The first two PIII-550 PCs we tested race onto the chart this month, and one even debuts as the top Best Buy.

Leading the way, Dell's Windows NT 4.0­based Dimension XPS T550 set a PC WorldBench 98 record score of 309. As such, it's the fastest machine to endure our test bench. The T550, a feature-rich SOHO user's delight, has both CD-RW and Zip drives yet is cost competitive, with a $2659 price tag. Dell's high reliability and service ratings in our reader surveys add to the system's appeal.

At the other end of the price scale, the Compaq Prosignia Deskpro EN 6550+ rings up at a hefty $3119. Its graphics features, including a crisp 19-inch monitor and a robust Matrox Millennium G200 graphics card, will please designers and Web developers. With a PC WorldBench 98 score of 300, however, it's 3 percent slower than the Dimension XPS T550.

Attack of the PIII-450s

PIII-550 PCs aren't the only systems stirring up a commotion. Three of the eight new PCs on the power chart carry Intel's PIII-450 processor, and are priced to move. One example: MidWest Micro's $1899 Business Solution XPP-450 racked up a PC WorldBench 98 score of 261, and comes equipped with an LS-120 drive, a network card, and a modem.

The Big Cheap

It was a busy month on the budget chart as well. Six new systems land on the Top 20, giving bargain shoppers a lot to choose from. Of these, CyberMax's AMD K6-III-400 Entrepreneur KIII-400A nabs the highest score. The fastest SOHO PC on the chart, it costs just $1299.

Two other budget Best Buys, PIII-450 systems from Micro Express and MidWest Micro, prove that smaller companies can deliver a winning combination of price, performance, and features. Support quality for both is rated only Fair, however; the lesson here is to keep an eye on service and support--two areas in which second-tier vendors typically trail their major-league competitors.

Though PIII-450 PCs earn high marks on both the power and budget charts, many companies are clearing out systems with these or other older processors to make way for the latest and greatest. MidWest Micro is the only company offering a new Pentium II-400 PC this month--at a time when most companies have dropped systems with that CPU from their lines entirely. A short-term bargain, the vendor's $1189 Office Pro 400 will likely be phased out before too long.

The same pattern is surfacing on the budget notebook chart, where the newer Celeron-333 laptops are replacing older PII-266 and PII-300 systems. One ultracheap notebook from a lesser-known vendor, the $1469 ChemBook 7200 from Chem USA, offers a lot for a superlow price. Although it won't win any design awards, this 6.9-pound notebook comes loaded with such essentials as a built-in floppy drive, a CD-ROM drive, a 56-kbps modem, and a battery that runs for 3.3 hours. Unlike many of its Top 10 competitors, the ChemBook lacks a DVD-ROM drive, but Chem USA says that a DVD laptop will be available soon.