Ritmo's Smart 256 is a plain looking key with very little else in the pack aside from a lanyard and a USB extension cable.

Another RADEON 9800 PRO-based card, the SmartVGA is designed for hardcore framerate gamers. In performance terms, the SmartVGA is only slightly, albeit consistently, behind the Hercules 9800 PRO.

We see plenty of red, green, blue and even the occasional black or silver PCB in the Labs, but it's not often we see a purple one.

For an attractively low $119, the Shuttle AB60RS offers all the basics, and also includes SATA, AGP 8x, and support for up to eight USB ports.

A barebones Athlon mobo, the AK39N has enough functionality to set this board apart as an ideal platform for building a home PC or workstation.

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.

The core of SATOs SS51G is an incredibly tiny Shuttle XPC. These bare-bones boxes have been on the market for close to six months now, and have proven effective (if not over-whelming) performers and a very popular choice for building a lounge-room PC for playing music and DVD movies.

Shuttle is a bit of a pioneer in the world of barebones PCs, and is one of few manufacturers to have a range of systems on offer and not just a couple of basic units. Its also the only one in this roundup to offer a barebones based around the new Athlon 64.