Amax MAX 64 3400+

The $2839 Amax Max64 3400+, powered by AMD's 2.2-GHz Athlon 64 3400+ processor, comes in an unassuming but attractive black midsize tower case with a silver front panel.

The Max 64 3400+ earned a score of 93 in our new WorldBench 5 tests. While that's certainly a good score, it's slightly lower than we've seen from other PCs equipped with the same processor. That may be due in part to the other systems having RAID-0 striped Serial ATA hard drive configurations. Our test system had just a single SATA drive, although it was a hefty 160GB in size. Its Foxconn motherboard has a total of four SATA ports, so you can upgrade to RAID if you need the extra performance. At $2839, though, the Max64 3400+ is slightly pricey for its configuration.

In our graphics tests, the Max64 3400+ also performed well, though slightly slower than other systems with the same ATI Radeon 9800 XT graphics board with 256MB of graphics RAM. At the more demanding 1280-by-1024-pixel resolution popular with gamers, the Max64 3400+ notched 79 frames per second in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and 179 frames per second in Unreal Tournament 2003. For a general-purpose desktop, that's pretty strong, but serious gamers seeking top-level performance will want to look elsewhere.

The included 19-inch AG Neovo F-419 LCD monitor uses a DVI connector to get the most from the graphics board. We were impressed by the picture quality--we were able to read small text fonts easily. We also saw rich colors and sharp detail in graphics, and we noticed none of the fuzz, interference, or moiré patterns that sometimes plague LCD panels.

The 5.1-channel Creative Inspire SBS 5.1 560 speakers are connected to the motherboard's integrated audio. The sound quality was generally good, but we heard some hiss from the small satellite speakers when listening to vocal tracks.

Cables inside the Max64 are arranged neatly, giving you plenty of room to move around when performing upgrades. One of the PCI slots is obscured by the graphics board, and a Creative Labs V.92 modem fills another, but that still leaves you three others available for expansion. You get four full-size externally accessible drive bays, with two taken by a dual-format DVD writer and a CD-RW drive, both from Asus. A floppy drive and a seven-in-one flash memory card reader fill out the 3-inch drive bays on the front panel.

Along with the system, Amax has thrown in an unusual extra: An Ezonics AirDrive Pro that combines a USB 128MB flash memory drive with an 802.11b wireless adapter. Though this would seem to be a more appropriate accessory for a notebook computer, we still think it's noteworthy. We also received an uninterruptible power supply from Powercom that lets the PC run for 10 minutes or more during a power outage. For longer periods, the included software can shut down the PC automatically, if you are not around to do it yourself.

The Max64 comes with a moderate stock of software, including Microsoft Works and a variety of DVD authoring packages. You get a convenient box to hold the variety of documentation covering each component, but the overall system manual refers to a previous generation of Amax PC.

Upshot: The Max64 3400+ may not break any speed records, but it is still a well-built PC with plenty of room for expansion.

Paul Jasper