Top 15 Home PCs

Seven systems are new to this month's chart, but familiar names occupy the top positions. MicronPC's updated Millennia Max XP2, now with a 1.4-GHz Athlon processor, replaces its 1.3-GHz sibling of the same name in the top power spot. Its dazzling PC WorldBench 2000 score of 193 is the second-highest we've seen for a Windows Me-equipped PC.

Equaling the Millennia Max XP2's performance mark is the 1.4-GHz Aurora DDR from Alienware, a specialty vendor of gaming PCs. Alienware's first entrant in our Top 15 Home PCs competition made quite an impression, with a towering, jet-black case and matching components as well as thundering sound courtesy of Klipsch's ProMedia 5.1 speakers. A price of $3599 dims the Aurora DDR's glow, however.

Another gaming-machine vendor, Falcon Northwest, also competed for the first time this month. Scoring 197 on PC WorldBench 2000, Falcon's 1.4-GHz Mach V set a performance record for Windows Me systems, but it lacks the Aurora's polish. At $3195, it's also pricey.

Our value chart includes handsome PCs that set you back quite a bit less. A noteworthy newcomer is IBM's 1-GHz NetVista X40i, a svelte PC with an integrated LCD monitor and surprisingly good performance for an all-in-one system. Another new model, Compaq's Presario 5000, is nicely packaged for first-time buyers or for families seeking a second PC for light-duty Web surfing and office work.

But the top of our value chart belongs to two veteran systems: HP's Pavilion 9820 and ABS's Multimedia System 2 each slid up the scale a notch after IBM discontinued last month's number one NetVista A40i.