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. Heat should be no problem though; this tower features both the stock P4 cooler and a pair of 80mm fans one mounted unconventionally in the top of the chassis lid and the other attached to the perspex panel covering the left hand side of the case. The latter sports three different coloured LEDs, although they're drowned out by the large internally mounted blue cold cathode.
The black minimalist look is continued with the stealth optical drive bays, of which there are two covers supplied, with room for an additional pair of drives, but you'll want black faceplates to stop from mixing colours for the bays without stealth covers.
The system includes a multi-format DVD burner and appropriate bundled disk creation software with Roxio Easy CD/DVD version 6 and a copy of PowerDVD for playback. Also included is a 15in Mitsubishi LCD monitor, a size behind PCQUEST's 17in, but still great value and well suited for gamers and space confined entertainment users.
Performing well, it finished nestled between last month's Altech GameForce Warrior (Issue 75, page 42) and PCQUEST Ariadne system with an overall 289 SYSmark02 score. The Pioneer brings up the rear in the graphics department however, with 9666 3Dmarks in Futuremark's 3Dmark01SE, nearly half that of the Altech.
If you don't mind sticking with a clunky CRT and ditching DVD writing ability, the Altech system does prove to be marginally better value given its RADEON 9800XT graphics and higher benchmarking results. This is a great system, with plenty of upgrade potential or as a budget mid-level gaming machine. Plenty of value to be found here.