Top 15 Office PCs

Two PCs with Intel's next-generation Pentium 4 chip--formerly dubbed Northwood--land on this month's power chart. Intel uses a .13-micron manufacturing process to build the new chip, so it runs cooler and consumes less power than its predecessors, according to the company. Northwood-based CPUs also have double the on-chip Level 2 cache of their predecessors, jumping from 256KB to 512KB. Elsewhere, we have described at greater length our first look at systems containing the new chip.

In spite of our initial impressions, we could not detect any extra speed boost in the second-place MicronPC Millennia TS Professional ($2575) or the number five Gateway 700XL ($2999); both systems, based on a new 2.2-GHz P4, were outperformed by competing PCs with AMD and older Intel processors on our PC WorldBench 4 tests. Potential buyers should be aware that systems with revamped 2-GHz processors (called 2A-GHz Pentium 4s) are also available, creating some overlap with earlier-generation 2-GHz Pentium 4 machines. Some vendors intend to carry both chips for the near future, so if having the latest CPU model is important to you, ask for it when ordering a system. For example, our power Best Buy, the Dell Dimension 8200 (which Dell opted not to retire, contrary to the report in our January issue), came with the original 2-GHz Pentium 4 at the time we reviewed it; Dell now offers a 2A-GHz version as well.

Also new to the chart this month: the Micro Express MicroFlex 1900A, the Sys Performance 1900+, the Systemax Ascent SA14, and the HP Vectra VL420.