Lenovo C260 review: This inexpensive all-in-one PC performs more like a tablet

Lenovo C260 All-in-One PC $480.00 Penny pinchers in need of a very inexpensive all-in-one desktop PC will be happy with the Lenovo C260 only if their computing needs are truly minimal.

The best all-in-one PCs bundle solid desktop features in a sleek display—no unsightly tower required. But because they include a display, they often cost a lot more than traditional desktops, a problem Lenovo seeks to address with its C260 all-in-one, a 19.5-incher which goes for $480 (Amazon was selling this model for $450 as of this writing).

The C260 is pleasing enough to look at. It’s compact, with a medium-sized black bezel surrounding its 10-point touchscreen (at this price you don’t really expect the edge-to-edge glass we see in higher-end models). And at first glance, its feature list—which includes four USB ports, gigabit ethernet, HDMI out, a DVD burner, and an integrated 720p webcam—sounds good.

Frankly, we'd have happily traded the optical drive for better wireless networking hardware and more USB 3.0 ports. 

But you get what you pay for, and the C260 skimps in many ways to achieve its low price. It might be adequate for someone with truly minimal computing needs—email, light web browsing, or simple word-processing tasks—but others will find at least some of the many compromises annoying.

Boo! There's just one USB 3.0 port, and no HDMI input for connecting a videogame console or set-top box. 

Performance is the obvious starting point. Powered by a Pentium J2900 CPU with integrated Intel HD graphics (the latest branch on Intel’s Bay Trail family tree) and 4GB of DDR3/160 memory, the C260 eked out a dismal Desktop WorldBench 9 score of 28, despite having a relatively fast, but low-capacity hard drive. It’s only 500GB, but it spins its platter at 7200 rpm (we’ve seen all too many inexpensive PCs with 5400-rpm drives).

The Lenovo C260 produced one of the most anemic Desktop WorldBench 9 scores on record. 

Granted, our 100-point baseline PC consists of an Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, discrete graphics and a solid-state drive, but very few of the PCs we’ve tested have scored below 50. The Pentium chip, which lacks hyperthreading, likely is the major culprit, although the minimal amount of RAM combined with integrated graphics almost certainly contributes as well (the system can be upgraded to 8GB of memory).

Intel's Pentium J2900 CPU might be better suited to a tablet than a desktop PC.

This is not a unit you’d want to use for multitasking, which would severely challenge its memory resources. Even YouTube videos with lots of movement showed signs of strain, including pixelation. I also found touchscreen response to be less than snappy.

The YouTube issues, however, may also relate to another significant drawback: The unit’s Wi-Fi client adapter is a 1x1 model that supports only 2.4GHz, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. A 1x1 adapter like this can support just one spatial stream for transmission and one for receiving. This adapter is also limited to operating on the very crowded 2.4GHz spectrum, which will be problematic in environments where lots of other wireless networks are operating.

A halfway decent wired keyboard is better than a crummy wireless one, but did I mention this machine needs more USB 3.0 ports. Oh well, at least it has gigabit Ethernet.

That’s why we recommend using the less crowded 5GHz frequency band for media streaming (most PCs we review these days are outfitted with adapters that support both the 2.4- and the 5GHz bands, and new models increasingly support the faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard). Anyone trying to stream media would be well advised to use this computer’s hardware gigabit ethernet port.

You'll be limited to the playing very simple machines on this all-in-one. 

There are other irritants as well: Only one of the C260’s four USB ports supports USB 3.0—the others handle only slower USB 2.2 connections. And unless you pay extra to upgrade to a wireless keyboard and mouse, two of those four ports will be occupied by the wired peripherals that come with the unit.

The C260’s audio sounded OK, and its webcam worked fine for Skype calls. But multitaskers, people who depend on Wi-Fi for streaming media, and anyone seeking tools for any computationally intensive work should seek a more powerful system.

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D-Link DIR-868L 802.11ac Wi-Fi router review: Fast and surprisingly inexpensive

Don’t judge D-Link’s DIR-868L by its surprisingly low price tag. At the time of my review, it was street-priced a full $70 lower than the Asus RT-AC68U, even though it outperformed its competitor in several of my benchmark tests. Asus has a number of features the D-Link can’t match—but still, that’s a lot of cash.

Both routers are dual-band models that deliver throughput up to 450 mbps on their 2.4- and 5GHz 802.11n networks, and up to 1300 mbps on their 5GHz 802.11ac networks. Unlike Asus, D-Link hides the router antennas inside its cylindrical enclosure. D-Link allows you to create a guest networks on both the 2.4- and 5GHz frequency bands, and you may set these networks to be active only during a predetermined schedule.

ROBERT CARDIN

The D-Link DIR-868L is packaged in a visually interesting cylindrical enclosure. 

The Asus is the better choice for small businesses, but consumers are unlikely to miss having dual WAN and 3G/4G connectivity options. But like most high-end routers, the DIR-868L does provide VPN, FTP, and SAMBA servers.

Most consumers will be more interested in this router’s UPnP, DLNA, and iTunes servers. But they might be disappointed that D-Link makes them choose between sharing USB storage or a USB printer on the network: The DIR-868L has only one USB port (at least it’s USB 3.0). The DIR-868L also doesn’t have an onboard BitTorrent client.

D-Link has a good Quality of Service engine, but it’s not nearly as easy to configure as Buffalo’s router. The DIR-868L offers very little in the way of parental controls. You can limit access to approved sites, limit web access according to a date and time schedule, or block access from services such as peer-to-peer utilities, but that’s about it. And if you impose any of those limits, it impacts your entire network, not just the computers your kids might be using. If parental controls are your number-one priority, and you don’t mind limiting yourself to an 802.11n network, no router I’ve seen beats PowerCloud’s Skydog, even though that router is limited to 802.11n.

ROBERT CARDIN

One of the DIR-868L's few shortcomings is that it has only one USB port (but it is a USB 3.0 port).

You can configure the DIR-878L to operate as a router or (thanks to a recent firmware release) a wireless client bridge. It doesn’t offer TurboQAM on its 802.11n network, but that’s not a big loss. As a router, it delivered great performances in most scenarios, but it delivers very poor range as a 2.4GHz 802.11n network.

Each of the routers performed well when paired with a matching router configured as an 802.11ac bridge, but the D-Link DIR-868L performed especially well at close range (when the client was nine feet away) and when the client was in my home theater (an acoustically isolated room 35 feet away).

When I paired the DIR-868L with the Linksys WUMC710 802.11ac Wi-Fi bridge, it took a fourth-place finish once again. Its slowest performance came when the client was in my acoustically isolated home theater.

The D-Link placed fourth when I paired it with a Linksys WUSB6300 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter. But that finish isn’t as bad as it sounds, because the router significantly underperformed only when the client was in my home theater.

The DIR-868L’s 5GHz 802.11n network performed much better—in fact, it delivered the highest performance of all six of the routers I tested. It also had no problem maintaining a strong connection to the client when the client was in my home theater and in my home office.

The crappy range of the DIR-868L’s 2.4GHz 802.11n network will give you pause if you know you’ll be connecting legacy hardware to your network. It couldn’t maintain any connection to the client when the client was in my home theater or in my home office. If you don’t anticipate the need to support legacy devices to a wireless network, on the other hand, this won’t amount to a hill of beans.

D-Link’s router was one of the slowest at transferring files from a PC to a connected USB 3.0 hard drive. And since the DIR-868L has only one USB port, you can use it to share storage or a printer, but not both.

With a street price of just $150, D-Link’s DIR-868L delivers an outstanding price/performance ratio. It comes a very close second to the much-more expensive Asus RT-AC68U, although it doesn’t offer nearly as many features. And this isn’t the router to buy if you want to share both a printer and storage on your network, or if you need to support 2.4GHz 802.11n clients.

Michael manages PCWorld's hardware product reviews and contributes to TechHive's coverage of home-control systems and sound bars.
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gDoc Creator Review: Word to PDF conversions made easy and inexpensive

gDoc Creator $10.00 GDoc Creator is an inexpensive and capable PDF conversion utility for people who need to produce PDFs from a wide variety of document sources.

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PDF creation from existing document and image files doesn’t get much easier than the two ways you can do it with Global Graphics’ GDoc Creator. You can drag-and-drop the file (or files) you wish to convert onto the tiny orange application window, or right-click the file, choose Print, and then select the GDoc Creator PDF printer driver that appears during installation. Either way, you’ll have a PDF in a matter of moments.

GDoc Creator can also generate Word documents from PDFs. But it’s important to understand what this $10 application doesn’t do. In fact, the name GDoc Creator is a bit of a misnomer, since you can neither create PDFs from scratch nor edit them. It’s a conversion utility, pure and simple.

Installation of the app was initially problematic on my Windows 7 notebook: It turns out my Trend Micro antivirus software shut it down when it attempted to contact GDoc Creator’s online activation site (a problem related to third-party certificates). I briefly disabled Trend Micro, quickly completed the installation, and then reactivated the antivirus software. Judging from how quickly Global Graphics came back with this solution, I suspect the problem may not be uncommon, so you might want to disable any AV software during installation.

GDoc Creator’s desktop app at actual size.

The GDoc Creator application window is so small that I initially thought it wasn’t running: It’s an orange rectangle measuring a bit less than two by two-and-a-half inches, taken up largely with an image of blank pages followed by an arrow pointing to a page labeled PDF. The small conversion progress bar is barely visible until you actually use the app.

Hovering the cursor over the app summons a tiny grey toolbar that flies out on the top half of the right edge. It has only four icons: An X to shut down the app, a wrench to bring up the settings window, a question mark to get the help file, and a small grid of dots as a handle to move the app window.

The settings window lets you specify which flavor of PDF you want (more about that below); where to save the new document (either the source file location or a location that you type in), whether to open the new document when the conversion is done, and whether to alert you with a sound when a conversion is done (which might be a few minutes if you’re performing a batch conversion).

Of course, current Microsoft Office apps already allow you to save their documents in PDF format. But the desktop version of GDoc Creator can create PDFs from all the Microsoft document formats (whether or not you have Office installed) as well as formats Office doesn’t support. These include popular image formats (.bmp, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, .tiff., .tif), diagramming files, and even e-mail message formats. And the GDoc Creator printer driver can generate a PDF from any document that Windows can print.

GDoc Creator’s options include PDF variants optimized for different uses.

Output options are more plentiful as well. With Word, for example, Microsoft’s save as PDF options let you specify ISO 19005-1 compliance (PDF/A, the version best suited for electronic consumption), or password protection—but not both. GDoc Creator’s output options include half a dozen PDF variants, including ones optimized for commercial printing, archiving, and the web—not to mention password protection support.

If you use GDoc Creator to convert PDF to Word files—again by drag-and-drop onto the application window—what you actually wind up with is a PDF file that Word can open, not a .doc or .docs file. For these conversions, the options menu include optimizing for preserving layout, for the ability to edit text, or for text flow. I was not, however, very impressed with the results of my PDF to Word conversions. Layout was completely destroyed and fonts looked odd.

However, the PDF conversions looked fine. For $10, GDoc Creator might be a useful utility for people who need to generate PDFs from a wide variety of documents.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

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Review: Brother's HL-3170CDW color laser-class printer is inexpensive, but graphics are mediocre

You want a color laser printer, but you don't have a lot of cash. How does $280 sound? That’s the price of the Brother HL-3170CDW, and in exchange it delivers reasonably good prints. Not pristine, evocative color graphics—move on to another printer for that. But good text and decent spot color, it can do, and the toner costs are tolerable as well.

Here’s the real decision: Do you pick this all-around-average machine, or do you pick this other, like-priced color laser, the Dell C1760nw, which has much better color quality—but also much more expensive toner? Or do you think a bit outside of the box and consider a business inkjet, such as the Epson WorkForce WP-4020, which competes head-to-head with both of these lasers on speed, print quality, and features, and whomps them both on cost of consumables? By our reckoning the latter is the best deal, but some people just can’t get laser out of their heads, and they will have to think harder about the tradeoffs.

Measuring 16.1 inches wide by 18.3 inches deep by 9.4 inches wide and weighing 39 pounds, the HL-3170CDW is fairly large and beefy for an entry-level, laser-class printer (it uses LED technology to produce basically identical results). The height is due more to the stacked toner/drum system than the bottom-mounted, 250-sheet paper cassette. There's also a 100-sheet output tray integrated into the top of the unit, and a single-sheet manual feed for envelopes and glossy photo paper. The unit prints automatically in duplex.

When some color printers run low on one color, they will complain, but keep printing. Not so with the HL-3170CDW: It will not print when you run out of any of the four colors. This can be a problem if you really, really need to print something and haven't any spare toner. Better a warning and a less-than-optimal printout, than no printout at all. Brother needs to rethink this.

There's no reason to make a big deal about control panels on single-function printers, as most people rarely use them after setup is over. (Multifunctions are another story.) But the HL-3170CDW's control panel could definitely use a dedicated menu button. Employing the OK button for this purpose is unintuitive and awkward, an unnecessary corner cut. Otherwise, the single-line monochrome LCD display and controls are easy enough. The HL-3170CDW's setup was a breeze. The unit sports USB, ethernet, and Wi-Fi connectivity. There's a full array of wireless and email printing features, including AirPrint, and both the PC and Mac driver dialogs offer a bevy of options.

After enjoying its initial purchase price, your ongoing costs for the HL-3170CDW will be, if not actually cheap, at least better than expected. Most low-cost color lasers hit you with high toner costs down the road. The HL-3170CDW’s prices hover comfortably around the average—and are better than those of many of its competitors, though not as good as the above-mentioned Epson WorkForce WF-4020, whose inks are amazingly cheap. The unit ships with starter cartridges rated for a scant 1000 pages. Brother’s price for the standard-size, 2500-page black is $85, or a midrange 3.4 cents per page (cpp). We found it online for closer to $70, or 2.8 cpp.

The standard-size, 1400-page cyan, magenta, and yellow supplies cost about $70 apiece per Brother—a middling 5 cents per color, per page. Our shopping found prices closer to $57 apiece, or just over 4 cents per color, per page. A page with all four colors (using the lower prices) would cost about 15 cents. Higher-capacity, 2200-page color cartridges are available, but they offer just a small savings in cost per page over their standard-size cousins.

Speed is good compared to other entry-level color lasers and business inkjets. The Brother HL-3170CDW spits out text and mixed monochrome pages at a lively 12.2 ppm on the PC and 11.2 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-sized (4-inch by 6-inch) color photos printed onto letter-size paper at a brisk pace of 2.9 ppm, and full-page photos arrive at a spirited 1.4 ppm.

Fast means nothing if quality is inferior, and unfortunately, that describes the HL-3170CDW's graphics. Both monochrome and color artwork exhibited mild horizontal striations and vertical banding that were visible under light scrutiny. Worse, the color palette is overly light, and human faces look jaundiced. For a dab of color, a small picture, or the occasional, simple graphic, the HL-3170CDW's color quality will suffice, but not for much else. On the other hand, text is top-notch, and that's generally the larger part of the equation for the small or home offices that would consider this model.

To its credit, Brother offers a little more than most competitors do. The warranty lasts only one year, but there's free phone support for as long as you own the product. Speed is excellent, and for text and spot color the HL-3170CDW's print quality is fine. Toner costs are around average. At this price point, it offers a decent color-laser experience without gouging you later. But if you want the best possible deal in this price range, a business inkjet delivers far more.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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The daughter of a mechanical engineer, Melissa grew up playing with machine parts and still loves getting into the nuts and bolts of how things work. She is never happier than when she is on a factory tour.
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Lenovo IdeaCentre Q180 Review: An Inexpensive, Media-Centric Tyke

Lenovo goes ultrasmall with its latest nettop, the Lenovo IdeaCentre Q180. This compact PC's optional optical drive is detachable too, just in case you need its footprint to be even smaller. Unfortunately, tiny, space-saving PCs often come with less-impressive specs and performance, and the Q180 is no different, as this Intel Atom-based machine scored very low on our benchmark tests.

Our review unit, priced at $399 (as of April 9, 2012), packed an Intel Atom D2700 processor, 4GB of RAM, and AMD Radeon HD 6450A graphics. This Windows 7 Home Premium system also carried built-in Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and the aforementioned detachable DVD-RW drive, and came with a mouse, a keyboard, and a wireless multimedia remote.

In our new WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Q180 posted a score of only 38 (the baseline score is 100). This means that the Q180 is 62 percent slower than our baseline testing model, which admittedly has significantly better specs (an Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card). Since the Q180 is a nettop, however, such a very low score is to be expected.

The Q180 did not perform much better in our graphics tests; we weren't able to get anywhere near playable frame rates in Crysis 2 or Dirt 3. Video playback on the Q180 was fine, though we saw some dropped frames in action-heavy 1080p content. The DVD-RW drive is decent at playing regular DVDs. Lenovo offers a Blu-ray Disc drive upgrade on the Q180 for an extra $70, but no processor or graphics card upgrade.

Speaking of the optical drive, it is technically removable, but taking the drive off the PC is not easy. The drive, which is basically the same size as the PC, snaps on with the help of some very strong magnets. To take it off, you have to slide your fingernail along the seam and try to pry the two pieces apart. Doing so requires a surprising amount of force--it took some effort to convince the PCWorld Labs analysts that we hadn't inadvertently snapped the machine in half. The drive connects to the PC via an included USB dongle.

This tiny nettop measures 6.1 inches wide by 7.56 inches tall, and is 1.57 inches thick with the optical drive attached. When you take the optical drive off, the PC itself is only 0.87 inch thick. The machine weighs about 5.25 pounds and comes with a matte silver stand that flips over to accommodate either the full system (with the optical drive) or just the PC. The chassis is outfitted in shiny black and matte silver plastic, with a large black power button located in the upper corner.

What few ports the Q180 has are located on the back of the machine, consisting of your typical gigabit ethernet connection, four USB 2.0 ports (one of which you'll have to use with the optical drive), HDMI-out, VGA-out, and an S/PDIF audio port. The unit also sports a lock slot, which is unsurprising considering that this PC is so small and conveniently stealable.

The included keyboard is USB-wired and has Chiclet-style keys with slightly rounded bottoms and a soft feel. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, and it gives good feedback despite its soft-touch design. Also present on the keyboard are volume controls and a silver button for launching Lenovo's Vantage Technology utility suite, which includes one-touch system recovery. The USB-wired optical mouse has two buttons and a scrollwheel. It's light and comfortably sized, and it moves smoothly. It's generic, but it shouldn't bother anyone who isn't a gamer.

The bundled "multimedia remote" is interesting. It comes with a USB dongle, which means that if you have the keyboard, the mouse, the optical drive, and the multimedia remote all plugged in, you're out of USB ports. It's weirdly shaped, and looks sort of like a price-scanning gun--thick at the top and slimmer at the bottom. At the top of the remote is a small BlackBerry-like QWERTY keyboard, as well as multimedia buttons (volume, play/pause, stop, fast-forward, rewind, Internet, and a button that scrolls through open applications, similar to the way Alt-Tab does).

The remote tapers down under the keyboard so that you can grip it, and it has a large black "pointing stick" that's clickable, plus left and right mouse buttons, and a touch-sensitive scrolling area. Despite its weirdness, the remote is surprisingly easy to use (though it's obviously not for composing lengthy email messages), and it would be extremely convenient if you were using the Q180 as, say, a home theater device.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre Q180 is a mediocre performer, but its size, portability, and couch-friendly multimedia remote make it a good contender for media mavens on a budget. It isn't the most capable media-center PC, but if you're looking for a very inexpensive nettop to flesh out an entertainment center or stash in a nook, this is it.

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Inexpensive EasyTables Database Program: Good Concept, Poor Execution

Many people need to keep track of structured information in a simple, straightforward, way. Database programs often skew towards the higher end of cost and complexity, or towards unstructured, free-text tools which have benefits, but also drawbacks. EasyTables ($35, 14-day free trial) is a program that attempts to fill a niche for users with no database or coding experience that still need to track, sort, and search their data. Unfortunately, showstopper bugs and an unresponsive development team make this database program an unreliable choice.

EasyTables allows the user to create simple flat-file databases with minimal hassle.EasyTables 2.4.5 resides, after installation, in the taskbar, and this makes it convenient to create or review tables of various sorts. The user can create as many tables as he/she wishes, and access them from a right-click on the icon in the taskbar. Thus, it's easy to quickly bring up a contacts table, a to-do list, or a simple inventory.

Creating tables is equally simple; a straightforward interface allows you to add columns and set their type (text, integer, date, currency, and so on). Once this is done, you can then begin adding in data, either manually, or by importing it from a CSV. Columns can be deleted or edited later, though users should be careful about doing so; once a column is deleted, that data is gone, even if the column is later recreated.

When being used, EasyTables presents a basic grid of data. Columns can be dragged around to reorder them, and clicking a column will sort by it. Filters can be created by clicking a value in a cell, or by bringing up a filter dialog to set multiple conditions at once. Data can be entered in the grid, or by a simple form which is auto-generated. Text font, color, and size can be set on a field-by-field basis.

Unfortunately, EasyTables has serious bugs, including some that locked me out of my database, though I was able to make a copy of it and re-access the data. Setting a filter on an integer field by using the "add to filter" button caused a crash error that re-occurred whenever I tried to reopen that database. Automatic fields, such as Creation Date, sometimes came up blank and sometimes not. While not a bug per se, there is no way to delete an entry from the drop-down type fields, so if you made a mistake in typing, the erroneous entry will remain to clutter the field.

Further, EasyTables is poorly documented. There is a .CHM file which contains very basic information, but doesn't document all features, such as the "Expression" field type (which would seem to be very useful). There is a FAQ, which is written in somewhat broken English and which mostly just repeats the documentation. As of this writing, NiceKit has not replied to email queries.

With a list price of $35, EasyTables is pushing the limit of price for functionality if everything worked perfectly. Given the issues and the seeming lack of recent updates (the program is copyright 2010), I have to put this firmly in the "not recommended" column, which is a shame, as its features and functionality would make it an excellent choice if it had fewer bugs and a slightly lower price point. Filemaker Pro, once the leading personal database, is currently targeted at businesses more than single users. Microsoft Access offers a lot of functionality, but can be more than is needed for a single, flat-file, type database. GS-Base, which has some flaws but also has a rapid turnaround on bug fixes and updates, is a good candidate to consider for low-end tasks on a small budget.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of this software.

--Ian Harac

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iBuyPower Erebus GT Review: The Fast and the Inexpensive

Two questions: What the heck is an Erebus? And how the heck is this system so fast?

According to Greek mythology, Erebus is the “personification of darkness.” We would have guessed that it was something related to Nike, given the crazy speeds of iBuyPower’s Erebus GT. The competition at the top of the performance PC chart is pretty tight in terms of general performance, but the Erebus GT shines in plenty of other areas, too: Killer gaming capabilities combine with a beautiful, easy-to-access, water-cooled interior and every modern connection type you might think to plug in.

One of the biggest selling points of the Erebus GT is its price: A cool $2499 (as of March 28, 2012) nets you access to one of the fastest systems on our performance PC chart. That stunning speed is mostly thanks to the system’s 3.5GHz Intel Core i7-2700K CPU, overclocked (and liquid-cooled) to a mighty 4.6GHz of processing power. The triple-fan radiator and separate single radiator found in this system’s liquid-cooling loop aren’t just for looks. Rounding out the system’s processing guts is a hefty 16GB of DDR3-1600 memory--not shabby in the slightest.

Our only criticism of the system’s loadout--and it’s a slight one--is that iBuyPower doesn’t throw in 2TB of storage (or more). That said, the Erebus GT's combination of a 1TB drive and a solid-state drive still gives users a healthy amount of capacity and power.

The result? A breathtaking score of 211 on our WorldBench 6 suite of tests, representing one of the best price-for-performance matchups you can find on our performance PC chart. But there’s more: The Erebus GT also carries one of the fastest single-GPU graphics cards on the market right now, the AMD Radeon HD 7970, which delivered a commanding frame rate of 59.6 frames per second on our Crysis 2 benchmark (2560 by 1600 resolution, high quality). And did we mention that the card is water-cooled as well?

iBuyPower nailed the Erebus GT’s look, feel, and lighting, down to the tiniest detail--from the flattened look of the system’s front, to the plastic ventilation fins on its top, to its crystalline-etched side panel, to the neat mix of half-inch hoses and angled connectors that leaves not a single liquid-cooled element feeling out of place. It's simply beautiful construction.

The system’s free drive bays--one 5.25-inch slot and four 3.5-inch slots--use screws to secure devices in place. All of them are fat thumbscrews, however, freeing you from having to reach for the tool box to modify your system’s loadout. You can mount hard drives using one of two handled pull-out bays--a convenient and unexpected touch for the aspiring upgrader.

You’ll find plenty of free PCI slots inside, including three PCI Express x1 connections and two PCI connections. However, the PCI Express x16 connection on the Erebus GT’s Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard runs at x8 speeds, not x16. (Bandwidth sharing at its finest, folks.)

The Erebus GT doesn’t skimp on the essentials, especially in light of the various devices you might connect to this performance PC. On the front are four USB ports (two USB 2.0, two USB 3.0). On the rear are six USB ports (four USB 2.0, two USB 3.0), as well as connections for DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, HDMI, optical S/PDIF, eSATA, FireWire 400, integrated 7.1 surround sound, and gigabit ethernet.

And that’s just the motherboard. The Erebus GT’s AMD Radeon HD 7970 comes with a DVI port and an HDMI port, as well as two mini-DisplayPort connections. Combine those with the desktop’s Blu-ray player, and all you’re missing is the popcorn.

Our review system shipped with a gaming mouse (which basically means the inclusion of side buttons, for those of us used to more standard mouse designs). It’s wired, just like the keyboard we received with the Erebus GT. We appreciate the keyboard’s function buttons, which deliver quick access to favorite applications.

We don’t say this often, but the iBuyPower Erebus GT is a system that must be seen to be believed. Benchmarks and descriptions can do only so much to highlight this desktop’s excellent performance and components (all available for a very competitive cost). Feast your eyes on this elegant, liquid-cooled performance PC in person, and you’ll swear that it's begging you to take it home.

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