The well-equipped ABS Awesome 4300 is an excellent value at $1819. Many of its components are similar to those of the ABS Awesome 6500, which we also reviewed this month, but the 4300 costs almost $1400 less. Both models have the same 12X DVDA?RW and 16X DVD-ROM drives plus a media card reader and gigabit ethernet. But while both systems offer a gigabyte of memory, the 4300 uses the slower DDR400 type combined with a 2-GHz AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU. Despite these differences, the two systems score similarly in our WorldBench 5 tests: The 4300 scored 95--one of the fastest performances we've seen on the value section of our chart--while the more expensive 4600 scored 96.
A 200GB Serial ATA disk should allow plenty of room for a digital media collection or for video editing. The ASUS motherboard has one unused SATA port, allowing you to add a second SATA drive for even more space. Plenty of open drive bays (five of ten are free) give you space to install additional disks or optical drives--they can be hooked to the 4300's three regular IDE connectors.
The attractive black case of this midsize tower is highlighted with blue anodized aluminum and a large see-through side panel. There are four empty PCI slots, but only two of them are usable: one slot is blocked by the graphics card fan, and an S/PDIF digital output occupies the blanking plate of the other. But if you want to use the slot, you can move the S/PDIF plate up next to the graphics card. Two USB 2.0 ports and a single FireWire port are low on the front panel, which might make them awkward to access if the system is on the floor. An additional USB port is on the memory-card reader. Yet another FireWire port and four USB 2.0 ports are on the back.
Frankly, we were disappointed with the images rendered by the combination of the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card and the ViewSonic G90 CRT monitor supplied with the 4300 we tested. Small font sizes were difficult to read, our test photos looked too dark, and we noticed a lot of moir?? patterns in everyday use. Our test games also looked somewhat dark, but the 4300 did turn in some of the highest frame rates we've seen from a value system at 1600-by-1200 resolution: 98 frames-per-second with Return to Castle Wolfenstein and 127 fps for Unreal Tournament 2003.
The included Logitech Z-640 5.1 speakers produced good quality sound for both music and games.
The ABS Awesome 4300 is at the high end of the price range for a value system, but it is as speedy and as well configured as many power systems we've seen, making it ideal for home users who want to get into video editing.
Paul Jasper
