Producing a PC for under a thousand dollars will inevitably lead to compromises – do you go for a better screen or more processing power? In this instance, Altech has chosen the former: a 17 inch Samsung TFT. This is not one of their gaming models, but still a good monitor for such a diminutive machine.

The system also includes a budget CPU in the 2400+ Sempron which accounted for some of the slower benchmarks. That’s not to say that the Altech Gameforce is a flawed beast – it certainly isn’t. It also sports a 16x DVD burner, 512MB RAM and a 120GB hard drive. There’s also an internal memory card reader which is a nice touch at this price.

The case itself is quite large, and looks designed for the gamer, with large carry handles on top and plenty of case fans.

There is much room for expansion, but again like the PCMarket machine it only has two PCI slots. The layout is quite neat too, and upgrading shouldn’t be a problem. The six USB slots and FireWire port will help when plugging stuff in. The accessories are fairly average though – the mouse is a bit odd with its inlaid baubles and leatherette feel, and the stereo speakers aren’t much chop.

The combination of 64MB card and slower CPU saw it beaten in the productivity benchmarks by the other sub-$1000 PCs, making this one best for the less demanding office tasks. However the Altech did hold up relatively well in our gaming benchmark – 3DMark01 returned a score of 4400 marks.

If you’re after a new budget machine, and a quality screen is important to you, then the Altech system is a good option, and it offers room to grow with future upgrades.