Systemax Inspire 7377

Despite the recent trend to make PCs more visually interesting there are still plenty of traditional beige boxes on the market, and the Systemax Inspire 7377 is one of them.

However, looks aside, you do get a good system and more than adequate features for your money.

The low price means you don't get the most up-to-date hardware, but any system based on an AMD Athlon 2200+ and 256MB of PC2700 DDR SD-Ram is no slouch, giving us 188 overall in Sysmark.

You also get both DVD and CD-RW drives, as well as a 60GB hard disk - average by today's standards, but plenty to be getting on with.

The Connect 3D ATI Radeon 9500 is an excellent card, particularly for the price, and the test scores we got were outstanding, but the CTX 17inmonitor it hooks up to was less than impressive.

Dolby 5.1 surround sound is built into the motherboard, and a set of Videologic ZXR-500 speakers is also included.

Should you want to connect any other devices to it, the 7377 has two USB ports on the front with a further two on the back.

Inside there's also room for new components, although it's quite a mess. It wouldn't be that easy to use the spare slots, as four of the five empty PCI slots are obscured in some way.

As well as the audio support the machine also has a Sony/Philips Digital Interface out port, though the lack of FireWire was a shame, even for a £699 ex VAT PC.

Although the 7377 doesn't have the most recent hardware it has all you need from a PC for a low price, and is more than capable of day-to-day tasks.

Specifications

• AMD Athlon XP 2200+
• 256MB of PC2700 DDR SD-Ram
• 60GB hard disk
• 48/16x DVD-Rom
• 48x 16x 48x CD-RW drive
• 3.5in floppy drive
• Connect 3D ATI Radeon 9500
• TX 17in monitor
• 4 x USB, S/PDIF out, VGA, Ethernet, modem
• XP Home

Systemax 0870 729 7596
www.systemaxpc.co.uk