Systemax P2000RV Premiere

So far Intel has had a hard time getting the Pentium 4 into the mainstream market due to the high cost of RDRam memory. Buyers have been put off by the fact that Pentium 4 PCs are more expensive than similarly specified systems from AMD.

This is all about to change with the introduction of Intel's 845 chipset, as it supports cheaper SDRam rather than the more expensive RDRam of the 850 chipset. This requires Intel's new socket 478 Pentium 4 processors.

Systemax supplied us with the first 845-based Pentium 4 system, and it is definitely a great deal cheaper than the first set of Pentium 4 PCs.

The system is based on the fastest Pentium 4 processor on the market, a 2Ghz. Together with a healthy 256Mb of PC133 SDRam, this makes this system a respectable performer, although it can't compete with the RDRam-based Dell Dimension 8200.

Looking further inside the system we find a motherboard from Biostar, which features four memory slots. This means it can support a whopping 3Gb of memory. Furthermore, it features six PCI slots, although the bottom is shared with a CNR slot.

There's also a huge heat sink on the northbridge chip helping to keep it cool. An even larger heat sink and fan are on the processor and this was quite noisy on our review model. There's the usual array of ports: two PS/2 and USB ports, two serial ports and a parallel port as well as the audio ports for the onboard sound, which is provided by an Avance Logic AC97 solution.

This is coupled with a pair of Creative SBS52 stereo speakers. These are fine as far as they go, but they are a bit of a poor choice for a machine costing over a grand.

Graphics are provided courtesy of a Gainward GeForce2 MX400 card featuring 64Mb of SDRam, a standard D-SUB and an S-Video out. This is a long way from the fastest 3D card available today, and we'd much prefer to see a Kyro II or GeForce2 Pro-based card inside. Systemax's reasoning behind using this card is that the P2000RV is a business machine. However, this isn't entirely convincing - after all what business needs a 2Ghz processor?

And, if it is a business machine, where are all the useful manageability applications? As this system is geared towards the business user rather than the home user, we find a 10/100 Ethernet card in place of a 56K modem. However, it wouldn't have killed Systemax to put both in.

The P2000RV comes with a 41Gb IBM Deskstar hard drive, which should be ample for any business user. Removable storage comes in the form of a Samsung SW-212B CD-RW, which is slightly below par as it's only a 12x 8x 32x drive and doesn't feature any kind of buffer under-run protection.

The DVDRom is a slot-in version from Pioneer and spins at 16-speed. The monitor is a 17in Trinitron model from CTX; capable of resolutions of up to 1280 x 1024 at 75Hz. It is a quality unit that most users would be pleased with.

As mentioned earlier, the performance of the P2000RV isn't half bad, scoring 169 in SYSmark 2001. Due to the Gainward GeForce2 MX400 graphics card, 3D performance suffers a bit, which shows up in our 3D benchmarks: a meager 1380 in 3DMark 2001 and an even worse 19.3fps in Quake III: Team Arena.

One thing that does support this machine's business credentials is the choice of operating system, Windows 2000, and the choice of file system, NTFS. We tend to see slightly slower SYSmark 2001 scores on systems that use the NTFS, as opposed to FAT32, file system. So, we decided to bench the system using the FAT32 file system to see what the difference was. We got the marginally higher score of 173 under SYSmark 2001.

Software is also fairly thin on the ground with the inclusion of Works Suite 2001, which also features Word 2000. There's also a fairly decent warranty of three years return to base.

Ultimately, £999 ex VAT is still too much money to pay for a system of this configuration. Most of the money has clearly gone on the 2Ghz processor, leaving little room for any extras.

Contact: Systemax
www.systemaxpc.co.uk.