The performance of this 200GB SATA drive was average. However, despite a three-year warranty, this fell into the lower bracket when it came to value

Five 200GB platters spinning at 7,200rpm in a 3.5in form factor.

An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

Looking to build your dream machine? We explore the latest components on the market, and give you advice on which ones to hunt down, along with the general price you can expect to pay for each major component.

While the storage community eagerly awaits Serial ATA disks (see page 39), the latest generations of Ultra ATA disks have emerged, boasting huge capacities and searing performance.

HP is adamant that the digital home of the future (and now for that matter) has a midi-tower PC in it next to the TV.

The cheapest system to be submitted for review in our performance roundup, it just goes to show that even $4000 will get you a hell of a lot of PC for your money. PCQUEST has also opted to go with a CoolerMaster case, both for its attractive looks and functionality, this housing able to hold a massive five optical drives and four hard disk drives, erring on the side of more is better.

There's substance beneath the hood of this fully-featured, stylish laptop. Plus, it’s the cheapest lamborgini you can buy.

A superb package for the price, with plenty of power. Only the unambitious battery life lets it down.

Thou shall not cast the name 'Zeus' around with careless abandon, unlesseth one can backeth up claims of PC godliness.

A good-value and very powerful system that will appeal to those seeking ultimate performance.

The two-and-a-half thousand dollar price point is a popular one for PC systems.

Total Home Theatre PC is a company you’d expect to know about these things and you can tell it’s put a great deal of thought in to this system.

Altech's Maestro Pro is a Home Theatre PC based on Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

This drive was the poorest performer in our roundup - but, as with its 200GB SATA cousin, the specifications were honest in pointing out the fact.

The Caviar WD2500JB is a big 250GB, and is one of three drives to breach the $500 mark. It is $80 cheaper than the WD2500JD SATA drive. Despite the three-year warranty, it’s not exactly great value; in fact, like the W2500JD, this drive carries a high gigabyte-per-dollar value.

A month's worth of HD news in digest form.

One of the most striking things about Pioneer’s entry this month is the cosmetics: it’s 24hr karaoke bar meets street-racing BMW. And lots of blue LEDs! And these LED’s can get a little annoying – especially the super bright “headlight” LED’s. They shine directly ahead, and at desk height they beam straight into your eyes. There is also a large, illuminated ‘Xfinity’ etched into the front door of the case. Suffice to say this case won’t be to everyone’s taste. But otherwise, the rest of the externals are OK – the top mount houses two of the six total USB ports beneath a tidy flap, and a large power button with a good action.

As far as performance is concerned, the Emagen Lightspeed XPS is a fairly competitive offering. It sits in the middle of the pack as far as price is concerned, but managed to sit at second to third place in most benchmarks - it even came top of the class in 3DMark05. The 3.6Ghz Pentium 4 certainly helped there. And the fact that it’s $600 cheaper than the Pioneer system also works in its favour.

Small form factor (SFF) PCs now have their foot well and truly in the home entertainment and IT/CE crossover market due largely to their aesthetics, functionality and quietness of operating volume. Westan's Biostar product looks to continue along these lines, offering a multimedia PC with all the performance of AMD's 64-bit desktop processor architecture.