Sub-$2000 business. (Best Buys).

AcerPower Sd

[1] Housed in a small micro-tower enclosure, this 2GHz Pentium 4 system performed on par with other 2GHz Pentium 4 systems we have seen (refer to the table) and should be adequate for users who are looking for a quick, yet slight of build, productivity machine. It is well suited to everyday tasks such as office applications and Internet browsing, yet its GeForce2 MX400 AGP graphics adapter still allows you to fire up a few games in your leisure time.

System usability is enhanced by the inclusion of front-loading USB and audio ports, the keyboard contains multimedia and Internet shortcuts, and the mouse has a scroll-wheel. A CD burner is installed and the capacity of the hard drive is 40GB, There is a little room left inside the case for expansion, one each hard drive bay and CD-ROM bay being free. The total memory capacity of the system is 2GB via its two DDR SDRAM slots and this model comes equipped with one 512MB PC2100 piece, There are two free PCI slots.

Sound and network capabilities are built into the motherboard. Other features of the system are a small set of speakers and a 17in monitor.

Acer supports the system with a one-year warranty and a free 90-day hardware support hotline. There is also a product recovery CD, which can be used to restore the system to its factory state.

Pros: Good user-friendliness, CD-RW

Cons: Poor speakers

Altech Computers Viper XP 2200+

[2] NEW As a system targeted at office users, the Viper XP provides good business and graphics performance as well as the ability to create CDs and listen to music via a 2.1 speaker system. Its price point falls under $1700 and for your outlay you will also receive a machine that is readily networkable through a 10/ 100 PCI adapter and capably equipped to store your data thanks to the installed 40GB, 7200rpm hard disk.

Based on an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ processor, this particular Viper XP runs at 1.8GHz. Sitting in a Soltek SL-75DRV5 motherboard, this CPU is joined by 256MB of PC2700 DDR SDRAM and an X-Micro GeForce4 MX440 graphics adapter, which combined well and ably produced good scores of 203 and 6183 in SYSMark 2001 and 3DMark 2001, respectively.

The relatively low price point, solid configuration and consequent performance give this machine good credentials for an office environment where users need to work on graphical presentations and other fairly resource-hungry tasks, such as database management.

Network and hardware management features are not present on this machine, nor does the case feature any locks or security devices to deter tampering. However, for a small business with only a few users, these features may not be required, whereas expansion possibilities will be greatly valued. As such, this machine features a hefty housing that can accommodate two extra hard disk-sized drives and two more CD-ROM-sized drives. The motherboard itself has four free PCI slots and two free DIMM slots, which can hold a maximum of 3GB worth of memory.

In terms of usability, the machine lacks front-loading ports, but it does ship with …