IBuyPower Back TO School 64

Our back-to-school stuff never looked like this. IBuyPower's midsize tower has a wild-looking front door with a neon light that moves back and forth, reminiscent of the robotic Cylons on Battlestar Galactica. It's a fun effect at first, but may become tiresome after awhile. More annoying, however, the swing-out door on our test system fell off easily and ended up hanging by the light cable. Another special effect: The right side panel is clear, and a blue light illuminates the interior.

This system is surprisingly quick for a PC priced under $1700. With a 2.2-GHz Athlon 64 3400+ CPU and 512MB of RAM, it grabbed a score of 145 on our PC WorldBench 4 tests--a number that's more typical of power systems costing twice what you pay for the IBuyPower than of a value system. Outfitted with an ATI Radeon 9800 XT video card, the Back To School handled our test DVD well, too, showing smooth action sequences and no stuttering. Game play was equally smooth, with fast frame rates.

Our system came with a 19-inch ViewSonic UltraBrite E90F+SB CRT that displayed sharp text, vivid colors and realistic flesh tones. Rounding out the full multimedia experience, the bundled Logitech Z-640 speakers (with five speakers and a subwoofer) generated rich sound from music CDs and DVD.

With a dual-format DVD burner, floppy drive, flash media reader, and a single hard drive with 80GB of space, the Back To School is well-equipped for routine computing. But there's also lots of room for expansion, with six open drive bays (two internal and four on the front panel) , and one open RAM socket. Two USB 2.0 ports sit on the front of the system and four more are on the back, along with two FireWire ports.

We don't recommend this system to anyone who needs comprehensive instructions on using a PC. IBuyPower included a setup poster and manuals for some of the components, but no general system manual.

Upshot: Hidden behind the Back To School's outlandish looks is a quick, moderately priced, highly expandable system. You would not want it in your living room, but it might nicely suit the average teenage male.

Lisa Cekan