First labs, setting the precedent for all the others? Have we been too tough? I don't actually think so. All of the systems let themselves down with their presentation, but the argument is about how much that should influence the machine and its score. To be perfectly honest I couldn't care less if they mailed the system to me in bits, but unfortunately we have to be objective about these things. As I mentioned earlier, when you can walk into a High Street store and pick up a pre-packaged system with high quality presentation, that quality does need to continue into the mail-order market. We all know the advantages of buying mail order and some direct companies ooze quality with the systems they deliver. There is no excuse with today's competitive market to skip silly things like making it clear where to plug the speakers. I know that there are markings on the case and to a lesser extent the add-on cards, showing you where to plug everything, but you need a magnifying glass to decode the hieroglyphics. Anything to give me an easy life I suppose.

We're performance freaks here so that's what it comes down to at the end of the day. Generally none of the systems were fine tuned to give their absolute best but PC manufacturers have to make their systems as stable as possible to stop the dreaded support calls. On the subject of support calls, the Protek and Avanti machines both make it very clear that if you want software support you'll have to call a separate premium rate number. I actually think this is very fair because if you want to be talked through how to change your keyboard settings back to UK after messing it up then you should have to pay for it. No free rides round here obviously.

The systems themselves all let themselves down, mainly in silly ways. They've all got their good and bad points but the Protek machine does stand out.

The Avanti machine was plagued by something just holding it back performance wise although there's no forgiving that build quality. They were on a tight schedule to get the machine to us, but there must have been fifteen minutes in there somewhere to add a cable tie or two. The system really shines with the Live 1024 sound card and especially the 4-point surround speakers making it a great games playing choice.

The Big Red Voyager promises so much and delivers to a certain extent. It is literally waiting to soar on the performance stakes, just being held back by the 64Mg of memory and the hard drive. The hard drive limitation may have just been a one off although it's definitely worth seeing if Big Red can supply a UDMA/66 ready drive. The memory problem can be easily overcome by adding an extra 64Mg and with memory prices quite low again at the moment, Big Red will probably do you a good deal.

The obvious winner out of all this is the Protek Ultra MX, it is head and shoulders above the rest in terms of performance. I think this is probably down to it being a good, solid performer rather than an absolute flyer. Clearly the performance problems with the other two machines makes the Ultra MX stand out even more but the Protek is a deserving winner in its own right. It just falls over at the last hurdle with its general presentation, but is a worthy winner of the first ever one2surf Performance award!

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