A monster PC thanks to some very high-end components. But it’s noisy and expensive.

An adequate Media Centre PC, but Asus’ competitor blows it out of the water.

Whisper quiet, well built and well designed, but a lack of power and expandability will keep enthusiasts away.

FIC's Condor has answered the call this month, offering gamers an easy to upgrade system, wrapped up in a one of the most innovative cases we've seen.

Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 was launched with quite a bit of fanfare late last year, and not least of all because it was the first time in its 18 month life Australians could buy systems based on the OS.

When it comes to accessories, the Aspire has one of the best bundles supplied for this roundup: including an MCE remote and a radio/TV antenna! It also has a decent specification list: 3Ghz Pentium 4; 160GB HDD; and 512MB RAM. The only sticking point here, amongst all this multimedia goodness, is the inclusion of the Mobility X300 video card. It's like building a Ferrari and installing a two-stroke motor. It doesn't make much sense.

Locating the sweet spot in the market for well kitted out machines on a budget, Pioneer has come to the party by introducing it's Power PC model, featuring all the tech goodies without the sour aftertaste of a high price ticket. This black futuristic PC looks quite schmick with its front mounted LCD readout displaying up to date temperature information on the system, so you know exactly what's happening with your cooling.

The only PC in our mini roundup this month to feature a rather boring beige case, it more than makes up for its looks with blistering performance at a very reasonable price. Inclusion of thumb screws will allow you to get at your hardware quickly and without the need for tools. Always handy for those of us that like to fiddle frequently.

Housed in a fairly attractive albeit plain chassis, this machine comes shipped with performance where it counts as well as plenty of potential for the tweakers and serial upgraders. A Pentium 4 3.0GHz processor is impressive enough for a system with a price tag under $2,500, but to also include a DVD burner, TFT display, good quality 2.1 speaker set up and wireless keyboard and mouse combo is previously unheard of.

If you're looking for a computer geared for gaming, the Vitesse is it. If you think that a Pentium 4C rumbling at 3GHz with a massive 1GB of DDR400 RAM has a nice ring to it, its gamers'-poetry when you add in a RADEON 9800 PRO.

It's inside that you find a HyperThreaded Pentium 4 3GHz processor with an 800MHz FSB, plus a gig of DDR400 RAM in dual-channel configuration.