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As the budget processor war between Intel and AMD continues, there's no time like the present to swap your old clunker of a PC for a faster--and cheaper--machine. AMD has officially launched its latest weapon in the processor battle: its new Duron, which will go head-to-head with Intel's Celeron. We took a look at one of the first systems with the new processor, the $1189 Sys TaskMaster 600D with a 600-MHz Duron processor from Sys Technology.

Duron Inside

PCs with Duron processors are available in 600-, 650-, and 700-MHz configurations, and cost roughly the same as systems with Intel's Celeron inside. We ran the PC WorldBench 2000 tests on a Sys TaskMaster 600D with a 600-MHz Duron processor running Windows 2000 Pro and a 20GB hard drive. The Sys machine scored 159--13 points higher than the one Pentium III-600EB model we've tested with Windows 2000, HP's Vectra PIII-600.

Systems with the Duron have some architectural advantages over Celeron PCs. The Duron's overall cache size is larger, thanks to its combination of 128KB level 1 cache and 64KB level 2 cache. In contrast, the Celeron has 32KB of L1 cache and 128KB of L2 cache. Cache memory is designed to provide quick access to data that's most likely to be needed next. The Duron uses a fast 200-MHz front-side bus combined with a 100-MHz memory bus. Celerons, on the other hand, use a 66-MHz front-side bus combined with a 66-MHz memory bus.

The Rest of the System

The Sys model we tested also came with a 17-inch OptiQuest Q71 monitor, which produced rich colors on our test images and crisp text that blurred a bit only at the maximum resolution of 1280 by 1024. The monitor seemed a good match for the Gigabyte TNT2 graphics board. The two-speaker Altec Lansing ACS21W set sounded decent for low-cost speakers, and made a reasonable match with the integrated sound.

Other add-ons for the Sys model we looked at are intended for corporate buyers, namely an Intel Pro/100+ network interface card and a case lock. The TaskMaster 600D is limited in other areas--it sports only a 17X-40X CD-ROM drive and limited room for expansion, with only two available PCI slots and two open bays. But this is a no-frills system designed to offer corporations an inexpensive, yet still powerful option.

Its keyboard allowed for smooth and quiet typing, with sleep, wake up, and power buttons, but it also featured an annoyingly small Backspace key. Another thing we didn't like was the midsize tower's lack of a reset button.

Apart from minor omissions, the Sys TaskMaster 600D's Duron-based performance makes it a real contender in the value desktops arena.