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The Sys Performance 3700+/64 is plain-looking but well designed and proved to be nimble in our tests. With a 2.4-GHz Athlon 64 3700+ CPU and 512MB of DDR400 SDRAM, this PC earned an impressive score of 96 on our WorldBench 5 tests-one of the highest scores from a value system that we've seen so far.

This $1674 PC comes in a black midsize tower case with two USB ports visible on the front panel; a third USB port is hidden behind a door, along with the power switch, DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, a FireWire port, and media-card slots. We liked the roomy case interior, which was easy to access by removing thumb screws and snapping off the case lid. The positioning of the internal drive bays was particularly convenient: We were able to add or remove drives by pulling or pushing them toward the open side of the case rather than toward the back of the case. Of the four open PCI slots, just three were usable--the fourth was blocked by the external audio jack extension.

The configuration we tested included an 80GB hard drive and a PNY Verto 5900 SE graphics card with 128MB of RAM. This graphics processor helped the system perform admirably in our graphics tests: At 1024 by 768 resolution and 32-bit color, it reached 121 frames per second in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and 243 frames per second in Unreal Tournament 2003.

The 19-inch ViewSonic P95f+ CRT is a midrange monitor, but it still delivers very good quality--it displayed bright, vivid colors along with fine details in our visual tests. The audio produced by the integrated sound and 5.1 Altec Lansing 251 speakers, however, sounded thin and distant during our DVD playback, and didn't match the sound quality of more expensive gaming systems.

In addition to the usual assortment of drivers and a Windows XP system-restore disc, the Performance 3700+/64 came with a nice selection of applications, including Corel WordPerfect, Ulead PhotoImpact, and Intuit's Quicken 2003. The collection of manuals and discs, however, was messy; we would have liked some sort of container or folder to organize all this stuff, or better yet, to have them consolidated onto fewer CDs.

Upshot: Uncomplicated design, good performance, and a reasonable price make the Sys Technology Performance 3700+/64 an attractive proposition--but we'd recommend configuring it with higher-quality speakers.

Andre Kvitka