Advent 3830 BTO

Advent's 3830 BTO is the first system we have seen that uses the latest chip from Nvidia: the Geforce Ti4800, an AGP 8x-compatible version of the 4600.

There is therefore little difference between the two when it comes to performance, with both 3Dmark and Jedi Knight results being pretty much what we expected.

Graphics are output to the rather average Samsung 9570F 19in monitor, which is a shame. Inside the spacious case is an AMD Athlon 2400XP+ processor sitting on an Epox EP-8RDA+ motherboard which supports PC3200 (DDR400) memory, although the review system had 512MB of PC2100 fitted in two 256MB modules.

The board also uses the latest chipset from Nvidia, the Nforce2, which comprises the graphics-free northbridge and the Media and Communications Processor, the southbridge. Performance is excellent for the components, at 205 overall in Sysmark.

Fast data transfer isn't a problem as this PC uses an UltraDMA133, 7,200rpm Maxtor drive with a capacity of 80GB and for backing up data there is a Cyberdrive 48x 16x 48x CD-R/RW. The second optical drive is a Toshiba 16x DVD-Rom.

There are six USB2 ports, but they're all on the back I/O panel. It would have been useful if at least two of these had been in the front fascia.

To connect to the outside world there is a V.90 PCI modem and integrated 10/100 Ethernet. As the board also supports Firewire, there are two ports on an expansion bracket.

Powering the audio subsystem is the excellent Creative Audigy 2 soundcard outputting to the impressive Videologic's ZXR-500 5.1 speakers.

DETAILS
Price: £1,299 (£1,105.53 ex VAT)
Contact: Advent 08705 464 464
www.pcworld.co.uk

SPECS

• Athlon XP 2400+ processor
• 512MB of DDR memory
• 80GB hard drive
• 16x DVD drive
• 48x 16x 48x CD-R/RW drive
• Geforce 4800 graphics card
• Samsung 19in CRT monitor
• Creative Audigy 2 sound card
• Videologic ZXR-500 speakers
• Microsoft Works 2002
• Windows XP Home