WHAT'S HOT: Equipped with a 1.6-GHz Athlon XP 1900+ and 256MB of DDR memory, our review Millennia XP+ nailed a score of 119 on our PC WorldBench 4 tests--three points better than similarly configured Windows XP Professional machines we've tested to date.

The blue-accented white midsize tower housing this powerful system offers some impressive features of its own. The two front-mounted USB ports (for a total of four) keep users from having to crawl behind their PC to hook up peripherals. You can open system's tower by loosening a thumbscrew and then pressing two latches at the rear of the side panel; the sturdy, metal-lined plastic side panel comes off and snaps back in without much effort.

Expansion room abounds inside the neat interior--cables are nicely bundled, and most are pulled out of the way so you can easily reach the five open PCI slots and five open drive bays (three of which are for removable media drives). You can add the removable media drives without using tools--just pop off the front panel and then use the included (but not preinstalled) green plastic runners to slide the drives in and out. You can also add PCI cards sans tools by popping off the slot cover with a tug of the metal handle outside the system.

WHAT'S NOT: Some of the tower's design features don't quite work right. The five PCI slots have but one cover, and it needs to be pushed firmly back into place. And though the flip-open drive cover on the front of the tower may help streamline the system's appearance when closed, it obstructs your path to the floppy disk drive.

The 40GB hard drive is a tad small by today's standards.

WHAT ELSE: Test image colors on the 19-inch Micron 910ex monitor appeared slightly muted, but with sharp details. On the other hand, 12-point Arial text was crisp and easy to read--we could even make out inverted black bar text.

On the input device front, this system features a nice one-two combination from Microsoft: an optical mouse and the company's admirable Internet Keyboard, which offers ten Internet shortcut keys and allows accurate typing, with just the right amount of feedback from the keys.

Documentation for our Millennia XP+ included a helpful setup poster, a getting started booklet, and a thick overall system manual with detailed information on upgrades and troubleshooting, as well as a thorough glossary.

The system came equipped with an entry-level 16X/10X/40X CD-RW drive, which is adequate for standard CD burning tasks, such as performing data backups and creating audio CDs.

UPSHOT: Upper-echelon performance and an advanced, easy-to-service design make this Millennia XP+ a standout choice for midlevel computing needs.

SUMMARY

MicronPC Millennia XP+ PC WorldBench 4 score of 119, 1.6-GHz Athlon XP-1900+ CPU, 256MB of SDRAM, 256KB L2 cache, Windows XP Professional, 40GB hard drive, 16X/10X/40X CD-RW drive, Nvidia GeForce 2 MX400-based graphics card with 64MB of DDR SDRAM, 19-inch Micron 910ex monitor, integrated sound, Altec Lansing AVS 200W speakers, network adapter, modem, midsize tower case. One-year parts and labor warranty; free, unlimited, 24-hour daily toll-free tech support. $1592 800/642-7667 www.micronpc.com