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Shuttle I 8600b

72

Good

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Pros
Deftly balances size and expandability
Cons
Single fan sometimes gets a bit noisy

Performance: Good: 79
Features: Fair: 65
Design: Good: 78

Find out how these scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Performance
ACD Systems ACDSee	625
Adobe Photoshop	399
Adobe Premiere	519
Ahead Nero	681
Discreet 3ds Max DirectX	413
Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL	485
Microsoft Office XP	571
Mozilla	598
Multitasking	801
Musicmatch Jukebox	546
Overall Graphics Score	Fair
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	50.43
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	49.03
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit	40.93
Roxio VideoWave	315
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	88.09
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	64.4
Unreal Tournament, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit	45.09
Windows Media Encoder	415
WinZip	420
World Bench 5 Score	82
World Bench 5 Word Score	Very Good

Performance
WorldBench 5: Performance word scores reflect comparisons of PCs in the same category (power or value) running the same operating system. See Your Guide to the Top 100 for more details.	Good: 82 (Windows XP Professional)
Base configuration	Good
CPU	3-GHz Pentium 4 530J
System memory	512MB of DDR400 SDRAM
Hard drive (GB): Total capacity. May represent multiple hard drives.	320GB
Monitor size and model	17-inch Shuttle XP17 LCD
Graphics: Most integrated graphics systems use the PC's main RAM.	Integrated Intel 915G graphics
Case type: Vertical cases are towers (over 20 inches), midsize towers (15.5 to 20 inches), or minitowers (under 15.5 inches). Horizontal cases are desktops (5 inches or taller) or compacts (under 5 inches).	Compact
Open bays, slots	2 slots
Extra features	Fair
Removable-media drives	16X DVD-ROM, 52X CD-RW drives, media-card reader
Sound card	Integrated Realtek ALC850
Speakers	None
Communications	Network adapter, 6 USB 2.0 ports
Productivity software	Microsoft Office 2003 Basic Edition
Other	N/A
Graphics quality: Based on new testing begun in the November 2002 issue. Insufficient data for systems tested in previous months.	Good
Setup and ease of use	Very Good
Vendor's reliability/service: A vendor's score is based on surveys of PC World readers. Vendors receiving insufficient data scores did not generate enough responses to our most recent survey for us to make a determination.	Average/Insufficient data
: Lifetime refers to the lifetime of the product.	One-year parts and labor warranty; lifetime 8.5-hour weekday toll-free support during warranty period.

What You Should Know about the I 8600b

A PC With Little Included RAM Can Do Light Work

This system offers less than 1GB of memory, which is the bare minimum that any full-featured new computer should include. Whether this amount of RAM is optimal for you depends on the PC's operating system: Windows Vista and Apple's Mac OS X don't run well with less than 1GB, Windows XP is fine with 512MB and not too bad with 384MB, and Windows 98 is good with 256MB. Depending on the distribution, Linux can run with as little as 128MB, but most Linux users are better off with at least 512MB--and 1GB is better.

The more installed memory your PC has, the more applications you can run smoothly at once, and the better the system will perform. Upgrading memory in a desktop after you purchase the PC is a snap, but usually it's worthwhile to buy the amount of memory you want preinstalled with the system.