Featuring a microATX motherboard the HP Compaq 6005 Small Form Factor PC is relatively svelte, measuring 13.3 inches by 14.90 inches square and less than four inches tall. (Note: HP also sells the model 6005 in a micro-tower configuration). Built ...

Compact; lots of inputs; efficient; three-year warranty; SSD storage; quiet

Uninspired appearance; hard-drive performance will likely slow over time; a little pricey

As with many business desktop PCs, this system uses integrated graphics; in this case, the ATI Radeon HD 3200 core built into the 785G. It won't win any gaming benchmarks, but it should handle most light-duty business 3D chores, including running ...

One of the PC's weaknesses is the tendency to be generic. That's certainly not a weakness of Alienware's new Aurora ALX. Using a new redesigned chassis, there's no way your Aurora ALX will be confused with a bland black box. And how could it, given ...

Truly unique chassis with multicolor perimeter lighting

Needs backup drive for storage; outperformed by overclocked machines

Getting inside of the case added to the mystery. Like a caveman hammering away on a flying saucer with a rock, we just didn't know how to open the thing. We finally found that lifting the very last ventilation flap unlocks the side hatch. With the ...

When Falcon Northwest submitted its Talon PC to us instead of its top-gun Mach V, we didn't think the machine stood a chance of taking down the spate of ripping-fast 4GHz Core i7 rigs we've seen in the last few months. And we were right. But the ...

Dual Radeon HD 5970s; super quiet; relatively energy efficient

Where's the Blu-ray drive? Will never get a hexa-core upgrade

But that was before we'd ever heard of ATI's new Radeon HD 5970 card. Code-named Hemlock, this new card features not one, but two of the GPUs that power the Kick Ass Radeon HD 5870

It is, perhaps, fitting that Velocity Micro's new rig is called a Raptor. That's because anyone who has ever seen the Air Force's F-22 Raptor in person and on afterburner knows just how overkill the F-22 is. The same can be said of Velocity Micro's ...

This rig is built for bear and breaks nearly every benchmark

Price that's as easy to pass as a gallstone

The same can be said of Velocity Micro's Raptor Signature Edition. With people overjoyed just to have a $99 Athlon II X4 620, Velocity Micro decided to go shock-and-awe on the spec lists-and the wallet

If you don't need terabytes of backup space for your network, the newest member of HP's MediaSmart family may be the right fit for you. With 640GB of storage, the LX195 makes sense if your home network consists of just two or three PCs. Like its ...

Small and quiet; low power usage; 640GB storage; fast file transfers

Not the best value; not powerful enough to transcode high-bitrate video

Serving high-definition WMV files to our Xbox 360 worked without hiccups on a wired network, but don't expect to transcode high-bitrate video with the meager 1.6GHz Atom CPU and 1GB of memory. However, serving content to multiple machines ...

If you doubt the existence of mirror universes that are almost the same except for minor changes, Digital Storm's 950Si rig could make a believer out of you. The 950Si is that similar to Maingear's Kick Ass Award-winning ePhex that we reviewed in ...

Nearly flawless paint job and quiet for this much hardware

Somewhat disappointing in gaming benchmarks

In graphics, the 950Si features dual EVGA GeForce GTX 295 cards while Maingear opted for three GeForce GTX 285 cards. Both rigs sport Intel's top proc-the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition at 4GHz-but get there differently. Digital Storm does a straight ...

When we began covering all-in-one PCs, we decided we wouldn't benchmark them because they're designed for quiet utility, not drag racing. But the Dell XPS One 24 we reviewed in May proved that an all-in-one could hang with the hot rods, so we decided ...

Cheap; quiet; attractive formfactor

Slow; mushy keyboard; annoying mouse

The Averatec All-in-One is a good value if you're looking for a midsize TV that can handle light productivity apps and access the Internet

You know when a little person shows up in a Ben Stiller movie he's gonna whoop some ass. Sometimes that's not just a comedy film cliché. Take, for example, Falcon Northwest's size-challenged Fragbox II. You'd think this Halfling PC would have a hard ...

Faster than big, bad gaming desktops and almost fits under an airplane seat

Slightly noisy and could use faster disk I/O for the price

This is the third Fragbox II we've seen in recent years and it's also clearly the fastest. With its overclocked 2.93GHz Core i7-940, 6GB of DDR3/1066, Lite On Blu-ray burner, Seagate 1.5TB Barracuda, and a pair of GeForce GTX 285 cards in SLI, this PC ...

All-in-one PCs like Dell's XPS One 24 aren't the most powerful computers on the market and they know it. Like thin-and-light notebooks, they trade brute power for a thin, stylish profile and quiet operation-and we're absolutely fine with that. We'd ...

Beautiful display ; wireless keyboard features a built-in track pad ; fast (for an all-in-one)

No Blu-ray drive ; keyeboard lacks a numeric keypad ; speakers sound harsh ; annoying fan noise

We dig that we can tilt the Dell's XPS One 24, but it would be even better if it could swivel, too

Gateway's trademark cow is long dead, but that doesn't mean the company can't be its quirky old self-something the FX6800 gaming rig illustrates perfectly. With its itsy-bitsy, microATX board, "I don't care about appearances" wiring, and moderate ...

Quieter and faster than many far more expensive PCs

MicroATX board limits your expansion capabilities

The results were surprisin. While the FX6800 didn't clean anyone's clock, the Core 2 Quad boxes didn't exactly blow the lowly $3,000 Gateway out of the water, either. For example, the radical, oil-cooled, nearly $11,000, Hardcore Reactor that we ...