Tangent Valera

WHAT'S HOT: With a 1.2-GHz Athlon processor and 256MB of SDRAM, the Tangent Valera achieved a stunning score of 216 on our PC WorldBench 2000 tests--the highest mark we've seen from a PC running Windows 2000. Getting inside the case is easy: After you slide a switch, the solid side panel comes off and goes back on smoothly. For future expansion, Tangent supplies five open PCI slots. Unfortunately, one is located so close to the AGP slot that a card installed in it could touch (and thereby damage) the video card; this makes the slot unusable.

WHAT'S NOT: To reach the RAM slots, you must work around a support bar for the PCI cards, which stretches from the top to the bottom of the interior, as well as an extra metal panel that surrounds the drive bays. The 17-inch Optiquest Z70 monitor displayed rich colors, but text looked blurry at 1024 by 768 resolution and became hard to read at the screen's maximum resolution of 1280 by 1024.

WHAT ELSE: The standard beige midsize tower has two USB ports, a microphone, and a headphone port on the front of the case; the pass-through cable connecting those ports to the motherboard further crowds the already messy interior. A quick-start guide and a bound Tangent manual with a detailed troubleshooting section and generic system information come with the system. The GeForce2 MX graphics board includes S-Video and digital video output ports. Corel's WordPerfect Office 2000 comes bundled, and a network adapter makes this Tangent ready for connection to a network.

BEST USE: Very fast and quite reasonably priced, the Tangent Valera would make an excellent small-office system with lots of room for expansion.

SUMMARY

Tangent Valera PC WorldBench 2000 score of 216, Athlon 1200 CPU, 256MB of SDRAM, 256KB L2 cache, Windows 2000, 30GB hard drive, 12X-40X CD-ROM drive, EVGA E-GeForce2 MX graphics card with 32MB of SDRAM, 17-inch Optiquest Z70 monitor, integrated VIA AC-97 sound, Altec Lansing ACS 45.2 speakers, network adapter, midsize tower case, Corel WordPerfect Office 2000. Three-year parts and labor warranty; free, unlimited 16-hour tech support on weekdays, 11 hours on weekends. $1195 800/342-9388 www.tangent.com