ATI gives the integrated graphics world a kick in the arse, John Gillooly feels the vibrations.

The concept of fitting normal PC hardware into a tiny package has been proven to work and small form factor (SFF) systems are now commonplace.

In the ever bloating world of mini barebones PCs there is a wide range of build quality and internal design to be witnessed. AOpen has been in the market for a while now, and the XC cube edition is one of the better designed systems in an area where quality can vary wildly from brand to brand.

John Gillooly takes a ride with the limousine version of ATI’s luxury card.

Although the mobile marketplace has been changing in the face of Centrino and the slow but gradual tablet PC adoption rate, large form factored (greater than single spindle) notebooks are still the order of the day.

The Gigabyte SINXP1394 is a little pricey, but supports SATA, IDE RAID and Hyper-Threading, as well as FireWire

Although this board is fairly small on features, such as lacking SATA and FireWire, it does offer a space-saving platform for building a first PC or for upgrading your current system and would make a decent but no frills workhorse.

One of the really annoying things about PCs is the sheer amount of desk space they occupy. This concern led to motherboard manufacturer, Shuttle, creating the product line called XPC.

TFT LCD monitors are increasingly becoming an attractive option. Prices are falling, and there are some great monitors around. The AG Neovo S-15V is a sub-$2,000 15in display with distinctive styling.

The KYRO II chipset differs significantly from the other solutions on the market. It uses a technology known as tile-based rendering to achieve peak performance, rather then the brute force solutions employed by competing chips.