WHAT'S HOT: While many vendors have been offering 15-inch LCD monitors with their PCs, Sys goes a few steps further with its 18-inch Sys 180L flat panel, a great monitor that displayed a bright, crisp image from a wider viewing angle than usual in our informal tests . Text proved easy to read, although diagonal lines (such as the arms of the letter V) had slightly jagged edges--a problem inherent to all LCDs. In our test photo, details looked sharp, and all colors--including flesh tones that are often difficult to render accurately--appeared vibrant.

It's rare that a PC's floppy drive and ports impress us. But this system is especially well connected: The floppy drive has a built-in combination SmartMedia and CompactFlash media reader, which allows you to transfer photos from a digital camera easily. Our review unit also came with one IEEE 1394 port (located on the Audigy soundcard) and four USB 2.0 ports, letting you connect to all the latest high-speed peripherals.

WHAT'S NOT: The expansion card that provides those four USB 2.0 ports takes up a PCI slot, as does a MIDI/game port--reducing the number of available PCI slots to one. Sys doesn't provide an integrated system manual, but the system does include documentation for all the individual components.

WHAT ELSE: The 1.67-GHz Athlon XP 2000+ processor and 256MB of DDR memory help propel this Windows 2000-equipped system to a hefty score of 124 on our PC WorldBench 4 tests. It's the first PC we've tested with that combination of processor and operating system, but its score lands three points below the average for Athlon XP 1800+ systems--including another Sys Performance PC. While the difference in performance would be unnoticeable for most computing activities, we would expect the newer system with a faster processor to outperform its predecessors.

With this system's 80GB hard drive, room for storage shouldn't be a problem. And you can back up or archive data quickly via the included Teac 24X/10X/40X CD-RW drive--the number nine model on our current Top 10 CD-RW Drives chart.

With the large LCD monitor and the impressive Creative Inspire 5300 Dolby Digital 5.1 speaker set, our test system would also work well for making presentations in small conference rooms. You can even output to an S-Video-capable television or VCR via the Leadtek WinFast Titanium 200 graphics board. Sys tosses in Corel's WordPerfect Office 2002 suite for business tasks. You can work in all applications easily with the included Microsoft optical IntelliMouse Explorer and Internet Keyboard; the latter allows smooth, accurate typing and features 10 hot-keys for Internet shortcuts.

A sturdy loop can accommodate a case lock to protect the system interior. Authorized users, however, will find that the two thumbscrews on the rear of the case and guide rails make removing the side panel a painless feat; the interior cabling on our system was bundled and tied out of the way of commonly upgraded component destinations. However, screws secure everything inside, so you'll have to pull out a screwdriver to add drives or expansion cards. As configured, our test system had two open bays for removable-media drives and two bays available for adding hard drives.

UPSHOT: People who work with digital images or video will appreciate the full array of ports and the included media reader. And everyone will enjoy the large, high-quality LCD monitor.

SUMMARY

Sys Performance 2000+ PC WorldBench 4 score of 124, 1.67-GHz Athlon XP 2000+ CPU, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, 256KB L2 cache, Windows 2000, 80GB hard drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, 24X/10X/40X CD-RW drive, Leadtek WinFast Titanium 200 graphics card with 64MB of DDR SDRAM, 18-inch SYS 180L LCD monitor, Creative Labs Audigy sound card, Creative Labs Inspire 5300 speakers, network adapter, midsize tower case, WordPerfect Office 2002, Norton AntiVirus 2002 and Personal Firewall, Gunlok and Dronez (games). 3-year parts warranty (5 years on processor and system RAM), 5-year labor warranty; free, unlimited, 24-hour tech support for first year (9 hours per day, Monday through Friday, thereafter). $2452 800/613-9963 www.sys.com