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Packard Bell continues to be the ambassador of the home PC package, combining the kind of hardware suited to the general PC user with a good selection of software. The Ixtreme Gold is its latest system for those looking to take advantage of Microsoft's Windows Media Center.
Beneath the black and silver plastic exterior is an Intel Pentium 4 540 processor, running at a clock speed of 3.2GHz. Supporting this is a 1GB of DDR Ram and there are two memory slots free for future upgrades.
Despite the potential power of the system, it yielded moderate results in our tests - it failed to run Sysmark, but achieved 4,797 in PC Mark 2004.
The 256MB ATI X600 Pro graphics card has plenty of dedicated memory for 3D games and will certainly run today's popular games at a respectable resolution. Its 3Dmark 05 score of 1,354 supports this, but don't expect to run the latest titles with all the high-end visual trimmings switched on.
On the storage side, two 200GB Sata drives provide plenty of space for digital music, pictures and recorded TV shows, as well as applications and documents, although 6GB is automatically allocated for system recovery files.
Where Windows Media Center is concerned, the Ixtreme Gold 2104 works fairly well, encompassing all the usual features and displaying a good TV picture using a dual digital/analogue tuner.
The lack of a DVI connection on the accompanying 17in TFT monitor or graphics card is a shame, but there is an S-video output for connecting the PC to a television. A set of Veloce Storm 2.1 speakers is included, but the Ixtreme includes support for 5.1 audio.
There are Media Center shortcut buttons on the front of the case too, but we're not sure what purpose they serve - the supplied remote control is a much easier input device.
TV shows can be archived to disc using the dual-layer recordable DVD drive and there's an additional DVD player thrown in for disc-to-disc copying. All the usual ports and sockets are dotted around the front and back of the case, including a 9-in-1 memory card reader. However, there's no room for additional hardware inside the case as all the slots and bays are occupied.
A wireless keyboard and optical mouse complete things on the hardware front, doing away with unnecessary and unsightly cables.
Of course, no PC is complete without software and Packard Bell bundles an excellent range of titles to get you started. Along with Windows and various multimedia utilities, including Roxio's Record Now, Cyberlink PowerDVD and Steinberg My MP3 Pro SE, the Ixtreme comes with Microsoft Word 2002 and Works 7 to take care of general productivity needs.
You also get PhotoImpact XL SE for creating and enhancing digital still images and a copy of Pinnacle Studio 9 Quickstart for editing digital video. Finally, Norton Internet Security FE 2004 is installed to keep you protected online. The Ixtreme Gold 2104 comes with a one-year on site warranty.
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All Desktops
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