ACER Altos G300
Acer has sacrificed overall power in favour of features with this moderate little system.

Are you board?
The choice of motherboard is also very important, because its the nervous system of your PC, communicating with all the peripherals, memory and processor. Look for a healthy number of PCI slots (five

Assembling the PC
While its a relatively simple task to install peripheral cards into a fully assembled PC, its a different story to actually construct a PC from scratch. Like every venture where some assembly is requi

Build your own PC
If you want something done properly, do it yourself. Gareth Ogden and Valens Quinn don their overalls to make a DIY dream machine.

Here at PC Authority were constantly testing the

Case closed
The humble beige box is an area of PC hardware that many people overlook. However, the quality of system cases varies significantly, and a bad design can cause no end of problems in the long run. Unfo

CD-RW drive - AOpen CRW-1232
There are a number of options when it comes to removable storage devices, and each has advantages and disadvantages. For general use, though, a CD-RW is easily the most versatile solution. Alternative

DVD drive - Pioneer DVD-116S
The use of DVD media for data storage hasnt been as quickly adopted as many people may have thought. However, building a PC without the capacity to use this format would be severely limiting. As was t

Emagen Vitesse 1000Z
A relative newcomer to the PC Authority Labs, Emagen has still managed to make a big impact

Gateway Performance 1000
Up to Gateways usual high standard of build quality,

Graphics card - Leadtek WinFast GeForce2 GTS Pro 32MB DDR
The graphics card is one of the most important performance-generating components in the system, but it can also be one of the most problematic. As is the case with most new hardware, theres a period w

Hard disk - 30GB IBM 75GXP
The choice of hard disk will make a huge difference to overall system performance. Due to this, weve taken the advice of our own Labs team and chosen IBMs 30GB DeskStar 75GXP hard disk. Its a common i

Hitachi VM-D965LE
Hitachi VM-D965LE Video

How To Do Everything With Your Digital Camera
Johnson takes an obligatory tour through the technology, explaining the differences between CCD and CMOS sensors, the common features of digital cameras and some of the jargon peculiar to digital photography.

IBM microdrive
Mobile storage

Jumpstart your PC
DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM is a relative newcomer to the PC as system memory, although it is certainly not a fledgling technology. Graphics cards, and other components that require much higher memory

Keyboard - Acer Standard 101-key; Mouse - Microsoft IntelliMouse
The choice of keyboard and mouse will depend on the main use for your PC. Those who do large amounts of typing would do well to invest in a high-quality keyboard, while others could get away with a st

Memory - 128MB of PC2100 DDR
The speed and quantity of main system memory is another major factor in determining overall system performance. The two most common types are PC100 and PC133, which run at 100MHz and 133MHz respective

Modem - Diamond Voice PCI ProTM
Internet connectivity is almost essential these days. However, with the increasing number of high-speed, always-on connections, such as ADSL and cable modem, the choice of connection has become quite

Monitor - 17in Sony CPDE220
When building a PC, its very easy to focus on the performance-generating components and forget about supporting hardware. One of the main victims of this is the monitor, which is a shame because, out

Motherboard - Asus A7M266
The number of manufacturers supporting AMD solutions has increased enormously of late, but despite the competition Asus has remained one of the best. The A7M266 is a good example of why this is so, fe

On your mark
Not long ago both Intel and the underdog, AMD, battled to reach the coveted
and psychologically significant 1GHz mark. When the AMD Athlon reached the landmark first - it marked a new era in c

PC Authority DIY system
System case - AOpen ATX Midi tower case or Lian Le midi tower aluminium case.

As discussed earlier (see Case closed), the system case is an important consideration when building a

Processor - 1GHz AMD Athlon DDR
For our system, we wanted high performance without high cost. The performance issue immediately rules out Intels Celeron processors and AMDs Duron processors, although more wallet-conscious buyers wou

Show me the money
Now that youve set your budget and chosen the components for your PC, its time to head out, credit card in hand, and do some serious spending. However, as tempting as it may be simply to buy everythin

Sony Network Walkman NW-E3
For Sony, the advent of MP3 must have been a particular irritation. After all, well before MP3 achieved any popularity Sony had released its own perceptual encoding/compression system for digital audio: ATRAC.

Sound - Creative Sound Blaster Live! Value Speakers Creative PC Works FPS1000
In many respects, sound hardware is a luxury. However, if we are to build a general-purpose multimedia system, then a sound card and speakers are essential.
On the processing front, weve chosen

Suits you
Before you can successfully plan a budget, you must decide on the type of PC you need, which in our case is a strong, all-purpose multimedia PC. The next task is to assign a chunk of your budget to ea

Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600
After enjoying the Satellite 2800 (reviewed issue 42, p80) so much, the Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 is a disappointment. This is surprising in that the general belief would be that the more powerful machine would be more appealing to the technically inclined than the Celeron-based Satellite 2800.

Win4Lin
Linux is slowly becoming an acceptable choice as a mainstream desktop operating system but some users do not like the applications which are part of the system. The hunt has thus been on to find the best way of running Windows applications from within Linux.