Although the ABS All In Wonder System 1's direct price of $2,999 steers clear of the "inexpensive" label, it's still several hundred dollars less than comparable systems from Dell Computer Corp., Gateway, and Micron Electronics. Never mind that the All In Wonder comes with a 450MHz Pentium II processor, 256MB of SDRAM, and a 16.8GB hard drive; it also includes a DVD-ROM drive, a dedicated 3-D graphics card, a flatbed scanner, and a color video camera.

The DVD-ROM drive is a third-generation Toshiba SD-M1202, which spins DVDs at up to 4.8x speed and CD-ROMs at up to 32x. DVD movie playback is adroitly handled by Zoran/CompCore's SoftDVD software, with some help from the CPU and the system's ATI All-In-Wonder Pro graphics card.

When you've grown tired of watching movies, you can switch to playing games. The All In Wonder comes with the new STB BlackMagic 3D, a 3-D-only graphics accelerator based on 3Dfx's latest Voodoo2 chip set, and 12MB of EDO DRAM. Anecdotal testing with several games indicated impressive frame rates and excellent 3-D graphics.

Another new component of the All In Wonder is the gargantuan 16.8GB IBM hard drive. It uses giant magnetoresistive head technology, which permits a larger-capacity disk surface without increasing the physical size of the drive.

Filling up a 16.8GB hard drive may seem unlikely, but if you use the Artec ViewStation AS6U flatbed scanner extensively, you may consume much of that space. The 30-bit color scanner, which attaches to the system via a USB port, supports an optical resolution of 300x600 dpi.

Lest you grow lonesome as a result of all the time spent in front of the All In Wonder, you can still communicate with the outside world without leaving the comforts of your PC. An egg-shaped CCD desktop camera bundled with the system lets you make video phone calls using NetMeeting, which comes standard with Windows 98. Bear in mind that frame rates as well as image quality are limited by the speed of the 56Kbps modem. The video camera plugs into the ATI graphics card, which features video-capture, video-out, and TV-tuner capabilities.

Be it a DVD movie, a 3-D game, or a TV signal, images can look only as good as the monitor on which they're displayed will let them. The All In Wonder's 17-inch Sceptre P73 monitor turns out to be the system's Achilles' heel. The Sceptre monitor uses a flat-square tube with a 0.28mm dot pitch and a 15.9-inch-diagonal viewable image size. Unfortunately, the monitor we were sent had a noticeably soft focus in the middle of the screen. We had ABS send us a second monitor, but it had the same defect. Based on our experience, you might get better results with the optional Optiquest V75 monitor, which costs an additional $75.

ABS is one of the few vendors we've seen that offers the high-end Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold audio card. Combined with the Eastern AX-4106 subwoofer speaker system, it pumped out impressive wavetable MIDI and CD audio.

Although the review system came with a 3Com USR x2 56Kbps internal modem, the All In Wonder will ship with the V.90 version of the same modem by the time you read this. The modem supports fax, speakerphone, voice mail, Caller ID, and distinctive ring, and comes bundled with SmithMicro QuickLink Message Center software.

The All In Wonder's hard drive and 2-D graphics performance are closer to what we've seen from 400MHz Pentium II-based systems. Despite this, the All In Wonder's Business Winstone score of 29.3 is only a hair slower than that of other 450MHz systems. Where the All In Wonder really stands out is with its impressive 3-D graphics performance. Its 935 score on the 3D WinMark is one of the highest we've seen to date.

You must remove four screws tothe All In Wonder's 15.9x8.6x17.7-inch (HWD) minitower case. The inside is a bit cramped, with the CPU blocked by the 235-watt power supply. The 256MB of memory resides in two of three DIMM slots, which can accommodate a total of 384MB. The graphics card is in the single AGP slot, and the two ISA slots are occupied by the sound card and the modem. The STB card uses one of the three PCI slots, and the single shared PCI/ISA slot is blocked by the sound card's digital-audio-output jack.

Of three accessible 5.25-inch bays, one houses the DVD drive. Both accessible 3.5-inch bays hold the floppy drive and the Iomega Zip drive. A single internal 3.5-inch bay is home to the hard drive.

Toll-free phone support is available from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (PT) on weekdays only. The system is covered by a three-year parts and lifetime labor warranty; three years of onsite coverage is available for $165.

With its blazing-fast CPU, high-quality components, and soaring 3-D performance, the ABS All In Wonder System 1 will take you to the bleeding edge and back--without bleeding your budget.

The ABS All In Wonder uses both the ATI card of the same name and the new STB BlackMagic 3D, a dedicated 3-D accelerator based on the Voodoo2 chip set.