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Systems powered by Intel's new 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 processor made a strong play on the power side of our chart, but failed to grab the top spot. ABS's quick Awesome 3450, equipped with a 2.167-GHz AMD Athlon XP 3000+, continues as our number one Best Buy. In fact, the three speediest power PCs on the chart are outfitted with AMD's fastest Athlon XP. Of the new Pentium systems from Dell, Gateway and Falcon Northwest, the Falcon was the fastest by a statistically insignificant margin, and is three points behind the Micro Express MicroFlex 30A, the slowest of the three Athlon XP systems.

All three of our new power systems include rewritable DVD drives and ATI's high-end Radeon 9800 Pro, a recently released graphics board that turned in stunning frame rates in our 3D gaming tests. The Dell Dimension 8300 and the Falcon Northwest Mach V come with a gigabyte of fast DDR400 memory, too. (After we tested the Gateway 700XL, the company changed the default RAM configuration for this system to 1 gigabyte as well--and raised the price $100.) Not surprisingly, all of these computers are fairly expensive; the cheapest, at $3117, is the Dimension 8300. The Mach V is extremely expensive by today's standards at $4224.

The ABS Awesome 3380 retains the top spot on the value side of the chart, while systems from HP and Amax debut lower on the list. Targeting home PC buyers, HP's Compaq Presario 6470NX carries a 120GB hard drive, a moderately powerful ATI graphics card, and a modest price of just under $1300. HP sells this model as a fixed configuration, so you can't order your system with better graphics, a faster CPU, or more memory. For a higher price, you can swap the CRT for an LCD or get a set of great-sounding Logitech Z-640 speakers. The Amax P4V Value system comes with a 15-inch LCD, though in our tests its image quality was merely average. The P4V Value would be fine for word processing and general use, but the 17-inch LCD monitor that came with the Gateway 500X was far superior, and that system costs only $235 more.

Premio's Calypso 4E system failed to make the value chart. Though the system was attractively priced at $1089, it turned in a very disappointing PC WorldBench 4 score of only 108. Still, the Calypso 4E included several nice touches, such as a front-mounted panel containing USB and FireWire ports, as well as slots for both CompactFlash and SmartMedia memory cards. Go to find.pcworld.com/35291 to read a full review of this system.

Tech Trend: Recovery Time: Send Your System Into the Past

Everything needs a fresh start sometimes, including your PC. When it starts behaving badly, and your attempted remedies only make it worse, it may be time to return your computer to the state it was in when you bought it. This is a drastic solution, but when the Windows XP rollback option doesn't work or Windows just won't boot, you may not have a choice. "When something is merely uninstalled, it can still leave traces of itself in the system's Registry and in the system folders as well," says Bradd Berdelman of Falcon Northwest. "This can lead to problems and decreased performance over several months." One approach to getting rid of all the flotsam clogging up your system is to restore the machine to the way it was initially--and many vendors provide tools that can do this quickly and easily.

Nearly every system we've seen over the past few months has included a restore disc, which can take your PC back in time to when you purchased it. Falcon Northwest, for instance, provides a recovery DVD that contains the original customized setup. "This allows them to have a 'factory-fresh' operating system within 15 minutes," says Berdelman.

Other system vendors do things differently. Xi Computer bundles a copy of Norton SystemWorks 2003 Professional with its PCs; the suite includes the disk-imaging program Norton Ghost. Before shipping a system, Xi copies an image of the hard drive to CD so that the owner can use Norton Ghost to restore the drive to its original condition. Instead of bundling a restore CD, ABS creates a backup image of the hard drive (in its original state) and places it on another partition. A rescue floppy disk allows you to restore your PC from the backup image.

Not every vendor provides these tools. Systems we've tested from Micro Express came with the Windows XP CD only. With this, you have two restoration options: Reinstall Windows and then install all the required drivers, or take an image of the hard drive yourself (using a program such as Norton Ghost or Powerquest Drive Image) when you first receive the PC.

Again, restoring your system to its original state is a last resort. By using the restore CD, you will erase all the data from your hard drive; and if you've added any new devices, you may lose the drivers that you installed for them. Click here for our tips on what to do when Windows won't boot. And making your own backup copy of your entire hard drive isn't difficult; see for our complete guide to backing up your system and reinstalling Windows.