Vantage Inspire 3400SE review

On paper, the Inspire 3400SE is the least imposing of the PCs on test. Instead of an Athlon 64 processor, Vantage has used one of AMD's less powerful Sempron chips.

The Sempron is AMD's cut-down, budget version of the Athlon 64 chip. As well as offering lower performance, earlier versions actually lacked the Athlon's 64-bit capabilities. Newer chips such as the 3400+ in this system don't have this problem - they're 64-bit too. The one big drawback to using a Sempron is that it fits into an older socket 754 connector on the motherboard, so you won't be able to upgrade to a socket 939 Athlon 64 chip.

This is obviously a limitation, but just take a quick look at this system's benchmark scores. Yes, 97.17 is the lowest 2D score here, but there's so little between the highest and lowest score in this test that this really doesn't matter at all. And the 3D gaming score, 41.8 frames per second, is positively storming. This is thanks not just to the powerful processor, but also to the nVidia 6600GT graphics card. With this much power on offer, most people won't need to upgrade.

INSIDE THE CASE

A quick look inside at the motherboard provided our only major disappointment. Unusually for a desktop system, the Vantage uses a micro-ATX motherboard. This is much smaller than a standard ATX motherboard and because space is tight, its upgrade possibilities are limited.

The board has just two memory slots, so if you wish to add more memory, you'll need to replace the modules that come with the machine. Thankfully, though, Vantage has used some of the money it saved on the processor to fit 1GB of 400MHz DDR2 memory, so you won't need to upgrade any time soon.

You won't be able to add all that many components either, there are only two PCI slots and one PCI-Express slot in the Inspire. If you do add a TV card or other upgrade though, you won't have to mess around with a screwdriver - all the blanking plates and add-in cards are held in place by an easily removable plastic strip. The same system is used to install disk drives. With a 200GB SATA hard disk already fitted though, you won't really need to add any more storage in the near future.

The Vantage is the only one of the three systems in this test to have two optical drives installed - a Samsung DVD writer that handles DVD+R and DVD-R dual-layer discs at reasonable speeds, and a plain DVD-ROM drive.

EASE OF USE

If the scope for upgrading this system on the inside is limited, you'll find no problem plugging in extra bits of external hardware. The Vantage has six USB 2 ports, two of them mounted at the front for easy access, along with a FireWire port for connecting digital camcorders and some types of external disk.

Suyama isn't a name that we're familiar with, but our introduction to the Vantage's 17in Suyama MJ7C TFT monitor was thankfully a happy one. It's not quite on a par with the Gigabyte screen supplied with the Eclipse, but it's not that far off. Its image was bright, colourful and crisp enough for everyday desktop work and it provided enough contrast to make watching DVDs a rewarding experience.

If only the speakers had been up to the standard of the screen. They're the same Logitech S200 set that come with the Eclipse, and are tinny and somewhat muffled. If DVDs and games are your thing, you'll want to replace them.

PICTURE PERFECT

Next to the unexciting budget printers that come supplied with its rivals, the Vantage's HP Photosmart 7960 is stunning - both for its sheer size and for the quality of its prints. The reason for its size is that it contains eight inks: the standard cyan; yellow; magenta; black; pale cyan; pale magenta and an extra two grey ink cartridges. This enables the HP to more accurately reproduce a wider range of hues than a standard printer. Black and white prints in particular are richly toned. It's an incredible inclusion at the price, though not an entirely up-to-date model - it cost £219 when we reviewed it in 2004.