Sys Technology AX-450 P3

Sys Technology AX-450 P3

SUMMARY

PRO: Good performance, great warranty, network card, remote management CON: High price for a budget PC, no system manual, mediocre support quality

At $1799, Sys's AX-450 P3 makes an expensive budget choice. But its PC WorldBench 98 score of 266 rivals those of systems on the power chart, and it's the lowest-priced PIII-450 machine we've seen running Windows NT 4.0.

The system comes with a network card, chassis-intrusion safeguards, Wake-on-LAN, and LANDesk hardware monitoring--all well-suited to corporate environments. In addition to providing management features, Sys includes an industry-standard 3Com network interface card--handy for adding the PC to a company's local area network.

The AX-450 P3 comes equipped with a high-quality 17-inch monitor that displays clear text and graphics. In our tests, even small text in Excel and Word appeared sharp at 1600 by 1200 resolution.

The system offers loads of expansion options, including two open bays for adding a CD-ROM drive, a DVD-ROM drive, or a tape backup device, as well as one open floppy bay--in case you want to add a Zip drive. Adding peripherals won't pose any problems, either: You'll find three open PCI slots and one open ISA slot in the machine.

And Sys doesn't overlook its input device offering. The AX-450 P3 comes with a quiet, solid-feeling keyboard, and a mouse with two-axis scrolling.

Unfortunately, the company does miss on some other details. Our test machine came with manuals only for peripherals, not for the overall system. This deficiency means that you'll be troubleshooting any problems you encounter on your own.

As some compensation, Sys backs the AX-450 P3 with a warranty that's one of the best we've seen, including six years for the CPU and main RAM and five years for labor. The company offers free, around-the-clock support for as long as you own the computer. In our anonymous support calls, however, technicians gave us varying levels of useful advice.