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Top 10 Value PCs

Best Buys from Dell and ABS top this month's chart, while newcomers from Polywell and Acer also make the Top 10.

  

Dell's OptiPlex GX150 leads off this month, replacing its now-retired teammate, the Dimension 4100, at the top of an all-star lineup. Polywell's zippy Poly 830K7-1000 takes over the third slot, and Acer's Veriton 3200 slips in at number ten. Two other rookies, from Premio and Toshiba, miss the starting squad.

Also of Note

Equipped with an 800-MHz Duron processor, Premio's Aries M133 matches the performance of the average Pentium III-800 system running Windows Me. It also has some nice extras for a low-cost PC, including an 8X/8X/32X CD-RW drive, a Microsoft Natural Keyboard, and Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business Edition. The rest of the components are unexceptional, however--the 17-inch Premio 701 monitor, for instance, delivered fuzzy text and middling color quality--and that keeps the Aries M133 off the chart.

At the other end of the price scale, Toshiba's Equium 8000S is a well-designed machine for corporations cursed with tight workspaces. Toshiba pairs a 15-inch LCD monitor with a compact, easy-to-open case that features tool-less access to components and advanced sound-dampening insulation around the hard drive. The Equium 8000S's performance running Windows 2000 was unimpressive, though. Due in part to its integrated graphics, which usurp a portion of system RAM, the PC posted an adequate score of 181 on PC WorldBench 2000.

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