ABS Desktop Reviews

"The same students that might consider this system, however, are going to hate the fact that the case is hard to open, requiring you to remove a bunch of screws from the bottom...That's why we were surprised to find that neither the ABS Media Center PC 8500 nor its lower-level brother, the Media Center PC 8200, offers a great degree of customizability...We have always loved the way ABS handles printed documentation, bundling user manuals, support software, and other important materials in a single binder for easy filing..." read more »

"Why do we build our own computers...Without naming manufacturer names, many of the pre-built systems I?ve used have been colossal disappointments...The Ultimate M1 is the product of this effort...the Ultimate M1 includes a 2800+ in all of its 2.25GHz, 333MHz front side bus glory..." read more »

"Brought to India in 2007, the BMW M Series is available in three models: M5 Sedan, M6 Coupe, and M6 Convertible...The BMW M5 is a full-size sport sedan that was introduced in other countries in 1985...The BMW M5 Sedan is backed by a 12-year warranty for the bodywork and a 3-year warranty for the paintwork...The BMW M5 Sedan derives power from a standard 5.0-liter V-10 engine, which churns out 507 bhp @ 7,750 rpm and 520 Nm of torque @ 6,100 rpm...The body-shell of the BMW M5 Sedan is extremely stiff and resilient, which maximises passenger comfort as well as safety..." read more »

"Our ABS Ultimate M6 test system came configured with two Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT graphics cards with 256MB memory each...We expect the performance to improve as SLI drivers mature (as it is, we tested the Ultimate M6 with beta drivers that ABS supplied...The motherboard features integrated eight-channel sound, but you'll have to shell out more money for a good set of multichannel speakers if you want to rock the house...There's no doubt that these are all powerful machines, the ABS Ultimate M6 included, but with any new-technology introduction, the new hardware coupled with persistent driver updates produces a muddied picture initially..." read more »

"Upgrade options are limited...The ABS Ultimate V2 42 is designed primarily for gamers who want a PC that offers decent performance at a reasonable price, but who don't plan on much upgrading later on...ABS equipped the $1599 Ultimate V2 42 with a 2.4-GHz Athlon 64 3400+ processor and 1GB of DDR400 SDRAM, and it turned in a strong score of 98 in our WorldBench 5 test suite, making it one of the fastest value systems we've reviewed...At a resolution of 1280 by..." read more »

"For buyers who find them more appealing than equivalent premium sedans, premium multi-activity vehicles (MAVs)—commonly referred to as luxury sport utility vehicles (SUVs) —can take performance and design to new levels...For 2007, the X5 has been redesigned and re-engineered...The X5 comes with a long list of standard equipment, including a complete set of safety technologies, both active—such as dynamic stability control (DSC)—and passive, including side curtain air bags covering all three rows...One thing that separates the GL-Class from many other full-size SUVs is that it’s built with unit-body architecture, not with the traditional separate body and ladder frame..." read more »

"Unimpressive performance...As our review unit was, the ABS Ultimate X7 can be equipped with Intel's new 3.2-GHz dual-core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 processor, which should eventually boost performance in applications designed for that chip...Our $3699 Ultimate X7 review unit also had 1GB of DDR2-675 SDRAM and a 400GB hard drive...Even in WorldBench's multitasking and multithreaded software tests, the Ultimate X7's scores were lackluster compared with those..." read more »

"With Intel's quad-core processors and next-generation 3D cards from Nvidia coming out soon, now might not be the best time to spend $4,000-plus on a high-end desktop, but with the Ultimate X9 III, ABS shows that it at least knows how to build a PC of this caliber...We definitely recommend checking back with ABS and its Ultimate 9 III system once the next-generation hardware is released...While we wouldn't recommend purchasing this particular system now, that's not to say that we think ABS is necessarily behind the times..." read more »