This month's Top 15 Desktop PCs chart highlights two trends: the emergence of powerful new gaming systems that have sophisticated style, and the rapidly growing selection of Media Center PCs, which expand PC-based home entertainment beyond gaming. Examples of the former are two new Athlon-fueled machines that sit atop the power section of our chart: Alienware's Aurora 64 FX-55 and ABS's Ultimate M5-64. Both of these systems are visually appealing without shouting "I'm just for games." Not only are they the two fastest systems on the chart, but they also produced outstanding sound with their high-end Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 cards and their 5.1-channel Logitech speakers (the X-530 and the Z-680, respectively).
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