- Systemax Encore 3107

MSI's sweet lil' MEGA 180 gets a closer look over at TrustedReviews today, though not as a barebone SFF but a full HTPC setup including a 17" widescreen TFT with built-in TV tuner, and much more. Being designed with additional hardware only up to the task of multimedia usage, gamers would want to look elsewhere however.

Purchasing a pre-built machine like the Encore 3107 saves all the building hassle and Systemax has put together a quality package at a very good price. The MEGA 180 barebone chassis comes with an nForce2 based motherboard and Systemax has fitted a 2800+ AMD Athlon XP processor and 512MB of PC3200 DDR SDRAM to the mix. This makes it a reasonable spec PC without driving up the price too much.

You also get a 160GB Samsung hard drive and an eight-speed Sony DVD writer, that can handle both DVD + and - R/RW media. Not content with the integrated graphics of the nForce2 chipset, Systemax has also installed a GeForce 5700 graphics card from MSI and although this is hardly cutting edge, it provides acceptable gaming performance. Finally there is an MSI TV tuner card, that comes supplied with a remote control.

- ABIT IC7-MAX3 S478 Motherboard

ABIT's IC7-MAX3 mainboard might be getting on a wee bit now, but that certainly doesn't stop it from being arguably the best possible P4 based board still around. Accelnation have decided to give it a going over today, and they remind us why this Canterwood King still reigns supreme.

To sum things up, the IC7 MAX3 is like the BMW M3 of P4 motherboards. An M3 is designed to be a driver's car that is quick around corners, high performance, and modifiable. The IC7 MAX3 was designed to be an enthusiast motherboard that offers system performance and friendly overclocking features. If you are looking for the Crème de la Crème of Socket-478 boards, then get yourself an IC7 MAX3.

- Articles and Reviews from around the Web

- Roku Roku HD1000 Digital Media Player @ DesignTechnica
- Computex Day 1 Coverage @ VR-Zone & Toms Hardware
- USB DivX Video Solution @ Everything USB
- Iomega Expands Flash Drive @ Everything USB
- Sapphire Radeon X800 PRO @ Beyond3D
- Creative Labs MuVo TX 256 MB @ Guru3D
- Albatron GeForce FX5700U3 GDDR3 Videocard @ PCStats
- Socket 939 Chipsets: Motherboard Performance & PCI/AGP Locks @ Anandtech
- XGI demonstrates PCI Express Volari and HDTV @ Hexus
- Battle of ATI RADEON X800 XT and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra (Trilinear filtering) @ Digit-Life