Computer Buyer's Guide and Handbook
(Best Buy)

ABS Builds a dizzying variety of PCs for the home, SOHO, and corporate settings.  The 3D 1GS is a solid offering that would be comfortable in a variety of roles, and it presents a strong value in a Pentium II system.

                Past ABS cases have been impressive, and though the 3D 1GS is not as radical as some other ABS cases, it is unique.  The 3D 1GS has simple lines, with some interesting tapering curves on the front panel.  Its strongest visual mark is a front panel of green translucent plastic.

                For the color coordinated among us, ABS sells a faceplate kit that includes replacements in red, purple and teal.  Though you won’t mistake the 3D 1GS for an iMac, its color splashes are a nice touch.  The case is functional, too; it disassembles with the removal of one thumbscrew.  Itsinterior provides easy access to the motherboard.

                The 3D 1GS is highly expandable, with three external 5.25-inch bays and one 3.5-inch bay available for more drives and accessories.  Matching the wealth ofbays is the motherboard’s abundance of slots: two PCI, one ISA and a shared slot for a PCI or ISA card.

                The mother board is an IWill VD133 sporting the VIA Technologies Apollo Pro 133 chipset.  This is one of the first chipsets to truly support processors with a  133-MHz system bus.  (Although a 440BX-based board could technically be run at up to 150 MHz, the chipsets lacked features that would allow the AGP and PCI buses to remain stable at high speeds.)

                While the 600-MHz Pentium III in the 3D 1GS is designed for a 100-MHz bus, the board supports CPU multipliers up to 8.0, which makes it comparable with Pentium IIIs running at over 1GHz on a 133-MHz bus.  The VD133 allows you to control bus speeds from the BIOS, which makes it easy to over-clock a CPU.  We were able to squeeze another 18Mhz out of our test system by running the front-side bus at 103-MHz (the system’s Norton S132 score was determined with the processor’s native 100-MHz bus).  Before you play with those settings, note that doing so might void your warranty and could result in data loss.

                The Apollo Pro 133 chipset has built-in support for the Ultra ATA/66 hard drive interface, which doubles the burst transfer rate of conventional Ultra ATA/33 drives.  In reality, this affects performance less than the numbers suggest.  However, anything that lessens the hard disk bottleneck is a plus.  The 20.4 GB IBM hard disk  in the 3D 1GS provides plenty of room for space-hungry applications, and with all thedrive bays, adding another had disk should be easy.

                The 20.4 GB hard disk was partitioned into two logical drives-unusual now that an operating system and BIOS can recognize large drives.  Upon consulting the documentation, we found that the D: drive is a for a 600 MB file that allows the system software to be restored to its original status-although doing so will erase any data on the drive.  While the disaster-recovery schemes like this have appeared before, they generally store recovery data on a CD-ROM, a more elegant solution that doesn’t clutter up the hard drive.

                The 3D 1GS comes equipped with a speedy Acer CD-RW drive that supports 4X writing to both CD-R and CD-RW media.  Though CD-RW technology is hardly new, falling costs have brought the drives to more mainstream systems than ever, a trend that’s expected to continue.  Besides playing conventional CD-ROMs, a CD-RW drive can also archive data to CD-Rs or record audio CDs.  A CD-RW has a lower storage capacity (about 500MB) than a CD-R (about 650MB), but it can be erased and rewritten many times, making it an ideal removable media solution.  AT about $5 per disc, CD-RW is the most practical and affordable form of rewritable removable storage.

                System audio is handled by a Creative Sound Blaster PCI128 card, which provides good sound for games and music.  The PCI128 employs Wavetable synthesis for quality MIDI playback.  The card is paired with a speaker system that shamelessly knocks off Creative Labs packaging while producing mediocre sound.  The Rock-2000 has little of the bass response we’ve come to expect from a decent subwoofer-satellite setup.  People who play music or more than occasional games on their computers may want to negotiate with ABS for a better speaker system.

                An ATI Rage 128 Xpert video card provides pixel-moving power for the 3D 1GS.  Though the Rage 128 is not ATI’s latest generation technology, it can crank out strong graphics performance.  In our game tests, the card supported reasonable high resolutions and frame rates, though it’s not in the same league as the latest accelerators targeted to gamers.  For cutting-edge graphics, the Xpert is teamed with a 19-inch Sceptre monitor.  Image quality is good, and it’s a nice treat to find a 19-inch monitor in a system at this price.

                A generic scroll mouse in included with the 3D 1GS, but the keyboard is a programmable model that enables push-button control of the system’s CD player and one-touch access to the web browser.  The keyboard also features a detachable palm rest for more comfortable typing.

                ABS backs the 3D 1GS with a remarkable service package.  The purchase price includes free lifetime telephone tech support.  Mail-in and carry-in labor also gets lifetime coverage.  One year of Onsite service included, and you can purchase an additional two years for $99.  Parts are covered by a three-year warranty.  ABS even extends a 30-day money-back guarantee on the system.

                The 3D 1GS is a capable system, ideal for the home or SOHO use.  While it possesses substantial power, its video card, though strong, keeps it from being a gaming machine.  For other applications, the machine should do the job.  The case and the motherboard provide a superb upgrade path, and the warranty is excellent.  The 3D 1GS is a quick and flexible platform at a good price.