Jal Virgo 2200SE

If someone came up to you in the street and gave you a big pot of cash to spend on a PC, you'd choose the best of everything. The fastest processor, as much memory as you could shoehorn in and a huge hard disk would all be fitted and at the end of it, you'd have an incredible piece of kit.

If we're honest, it's unlikely that anybody will come up to you and ask you to do that. As a result, you're likely to have a budget to stick to, and with a budget comes compromise.

But if you spend wisely, you can pick up a corking computer without going overboard. So how does Jal's £800 Virgo 2200SE fit into the equation?

AMD's Athlon XP 2200+ isn't the fastest processor on the market but it's not going to be troubled by anything most home users will ask of it.

The 2200+ runs at 1.84GHz and, even though the 256MB of memory is a bit mean for the price, it still performed well in our system tests. Three memory slots are available for additional upgrades though.

Areas in which the Virgo excels is in graphics and audio. Housed inside the chunky system case is a 128MB Radeon 9500 Pro graphics card, which we like very much.

ver the last year, ATi has refreshed its range of graphics components and the result has been impressive. ATi-based graphics cards are the best around for game fans.

9500 Pro-based cards are the penultimate cards in the ATi range and a fantastic graphics score in our labs tests was achieved. Playing the most demanding games on the market presented no problems at all.

Protruding from the back of the graphics card are the standard VGA monitor connection, a DVI connector for hooking up a posh flat-panel display and an S-video socket for connecting a TV.

The Sound Blaster Audigy card is another nice addition to a PC. It provides a digital output for connecting to external audio devices, a FireWire port and a Midi socket for connecting electronic musical instruments such as a keyboard.

The Audigy is also equipped to handle surround sound for gamers and 5.1 audio from DVD movies.

We were pleased to see an accompanying set of Nicole 5.1 surround sound speakers. Although not the best on the market, they sound pretty good and allow users to experience surround sound with no extra outlay.

As expected, the Virgo 2200SE comes with a DVD-Rom drive and a CD-RW drive for removable storage. With the popularity of broadband and subsequent influx of downloads increasing tenfold, storage space is a major concern.

The 60GB hard disk will be big enough for most, but those planning to dabble in other megabyte-hungry hobbies such as video editing might find it gets congested.

Although most hardware has already been included, the Virgo still offers space for upgrades. This includes two vacant 5.25in bays on the front, internal and external 3.5in bays and three free PCI slots.

However, two of these are obscured by trailing Audigy cables and an extra USB 2 panel.

The motherboard houses the usual PS/2 and parallel ports, while welcome additions include a network socket and two USB 2 ports. A further brace of USB 2 sockets can be found underneath a flip-up panel on the front of the tower making a total of six.

The 17in Samsung monitor isn't a flat-screened one but is perfectly usable thanks to bright colours and a sharp image.

A lovely wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse make up the peripherals while pre-installed software comprises Norton Internet Security 2003 (for AntiVirus and Firewall control), Nero Burning Rom, Cyberlink PowerDVD and a copy of Microsoft Works 2003.

All in all, this is a good PC which falls just shy of being great.

Contact: JAL 01782 848100
www.jal.co.uk

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