The Amax Power 3460+ comes loaded with top-notch components--it has a 3.46-GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor, 1GB of DDR2-533 SDRAM, and two 160GB hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration. But it also has a steep $3999 price tag to match.
Its components will certainly attract the attention of gamers and power users who expect great performance. The Amax's score of 99 in our WorldBench 5 tests makes it one of the speedier systems we've looked at lately. The system also posted blazing numbers in our graphics tests, racking up 327 frames per second in Unreal Tournament at 1280 by 1024 resolution.
Our image quality and audio tests didn't disappoint us either. The 19-inch ADI MicroScan A905 flat-panel display produced sharp text at 9 points and above, but smaller text was slightly blurry and harder to read. The monitor also did a good job of reproducing the colors and flesh tones on our color photo of kids. Images on a DVD movie looked great. The Creative MegaWorks THX 2.1 250D speakers produced nicely nuanced high and low tones.
The Power 3460+ has a large silver tower case, with an aluminum door on the front that is illuminated by two blue lights. A door on the front swings open to expose a DVD-RW drive, a floppy drive, and power and reset buttons. The rest of the case panels are heavy plastic, giving this case a solid industrial look and feel. A little trap door on the top panel hides USB, FireWire, and audio ports. The back has a plethora of standard ports as well as S-Video and coaxial and optical S/PDIF ports. Most ports were properly labeled, but some extras lacked identification.
Taking off the case cover was a matter of removing two thumbscrews. The interior has plenty of space for additional components such as drives and expansion cards, but since this system comes pretty loaded, chances are you won't need to add much. The tool-less design let us remove and add drives and cards easily. A nice touch was the large fan in the front of the case, which helps cool this monster of a box.
This very expensive system would suit power users and gamers who don't wish to compromise on features, performance, or expandability.
Andre Kvitka
