If your PC is less of a speed demon and more of a dinosaur then it's time to upgrade your CPU. We put the latest low, mid and high end processors to the test.

We know you want to play games, so we've put 18 PCI Express graphics cards under the microscope to see who really does the job the best.

Shuttle's push on the small form factor market has seen the PC finally migrate from the bedroom to become an integral part of the lounge room and entertainment set up. Capable of a number of varied roles, these include file servers, HDTV receiving boxes and media streaming machines.

Taking photos is only half the fun. Touching them up on your PC and printing them is the other half. PC Authority takes a look at some of the best photo-printers on the market.

There are always moments in life when you wish you had your camera to hand. The Labs team rounds up the latest pocket cameras.

While 64-bit computing has been around for a while (for the two of you who could afford Intel's Itanium, and now Itanium II processors), the dream of 64-bittery for the humble home system has been a long time coming.

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.

On receiving this unit, we were impressed by the mammoth 15.4in widescreen display. Although sceptical of its ability to perform given its monster display size, we were proven wrong at every turn, with the 8600 performing similarly to the more expensive Toshiba Tecra S1 Notebook (July 2003 page 40). Absolutely bursting at the gills with features, this Notebook boasts an array of connectivity options including side mounted FireWire and IrDA, while on the rear of the unit we find two USB and legacy serial, parallel and S-Video ports.

This is a handset we have been waiting to hit our shores for some time. Sony Ericsson now brings the S700i  to Australia and with it an amazing set of features and quality to match.

After last month's massive TFT Labs it became apparent that the old 'caveat emptor' is alive and kicking. You're not always going to get what you pay for – but on rare occasions, you get a lot more, as is the case with the Polyview CMV 1515 display. Stylish and bursting at the gills with features, this monitor deserves to make a significant impact on the LCD market. It's impressive specs include a 15ms pixel response time, which is undoubtedly the fastest we've seen.

It’s one of the facts of the gaming hobbyist’s life: cutting edge games require cutting edge hardware. It’s as set in stone as Moore’s Law (which is itself now 40 years old). Every 12 to 18 months you need to upgrade or get left behind. Our contenders this month make a very good case for starting with a clean slate, and none more so than this month’s winner, the Modtech Civic-64FX.

For a company whose only other major release was the original Half Life, Valve has pushed the boundaries with fresh, bold gameplay that stays true to the legendary legacy.

If you're space conscious or limited when it comes to your PC set up then no doubt you've already looked at the TFT display option at some point. We've got three new TFT offerings from three companies in the Labs this month, which should give you a good idea of the state of play of the TFT market at the moment.

According to a recent ACCC study, people are jumping on the broad-bandwagon in droves. In fact, the amount of people upgrading to broadband has doubled in the last 12 months. And as you might expect, the hardware community has responded by ramping up both Internet sharing and security devices for homes and businesses.

NVIDIA has been criticised for its oversized graphics cards, but the shoe is on the other foot this time with HIS putting a truly massive cooler on its X800 XT card.

The 9300 is reminiscent of its predecessor, the Inspiron 9100, which was pitched squarely at power users and gamers looking for plenty of grunt. This product refresh takes it one step further by using a mobile processor rather than the desktop CPU found in the 9100.

Dan Chiappini delves into multimedia jargon in our monthly tech term glossary.

Finding a good PC or notebook for the family is not as hard as you might think. PC Authority  puts the latest models to the test.

Wrapped in an attractive silver chassis, this sexy looking notebook is easy on the eye, and features all of the latest gadgets. The left-hand side of the machine features the usual legacy parallel and DB9 monitor out for use with an external monitor, although both are hidden beneath a rubber cover so as not to ruin the smooth clean lines of this housing.

The D400S packs the usual gear, and offers well-thought out front-mounted FireWire along with 802.11b on/off controls for the optional WLAN device. We were surprised the right-hand side of the chassis contained absolutely no connectivity options – a shame given the inclusion of only a single PCMCIA port. Three USB ports are present – two rear-mounted and one on the left-hand side.