Polywell Poly 880NF2-2000

WHAT'S HOT: Cast in aluminum tones, the Poly 880NF2-2000 has a sleek industrial feel. Even with DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives installed, this Poly had six unused drive bays--three for hard drives and three that can accept removable-media drives. The unit also has four open PCI slots and a vacant AGP slot (thanks in part to its integrated sound and graphics). Polywell placed two USB 2.0 ports behind a flip cover on the system's front panel, and a FireWire port on the back--a rare extra for a PC in this price class. Another nice bonus is the relatively large 80GB hard drive.

The system's NVidia NForce2-based integrated graphics did not produce impressive frame rates in our 3D gaming tests, but they did surpass almost all other PCs we've tested with integrated graphics. The Poly managed 82 frames per second running Unreal Tournament at a resolution of 1024 by 768, but in all other tests its frame rates were under 60 fps. We didn't see any texture or lighting glitches when playing games--a common problem with systems lacking dedicated AGP video cards.

WHAT'S NOT: The 17-inch AOC 7ELR CRT monitor that shipped with our unit delivered only middling image quality, and its bland-beige chassis looked mismatched next to the desktop's modern-looking case. Moreover, the text in our test screens wasn't as sharp as we've seen on many other 17-inch monitors. Likewise, the colors in our test photograph weren't as vivid as other units'. Colors looked better in a DVD movie and in games, however. Reminiscent of much older technology, the monitor lacks an on-screen menu for making adjustments. Instead, the bezel features eight icons (corresponding to controls such as brightness and contrast). To select a control, you tap a button that illuminates one of the LEDs corresponding to each icon, then press arrow keys to make adjustments. Because the monitor bundled with our test system didn't include a manual, we found this setup especially confusing to use.

The Altec Lansing ACS200W two-speaker sound system (without a subwoofer) that arrived with our review unit emitted subpar sound quality in our audio tests, with muffled bass tones and brassy trebles at high volumes.