Even though we don't have any other systems to compare this data to yet, the game benchmarks can offer us some solid data about how well the low-cost system can handle games at different settings and resolutions.

Let's start off with Prey, based on ID's much lauded Doom3 engine. Prey is quite a bit more demanding than Doom3 so let's see how well the low-cost PC handles it:

Not too shabby! Not too shabby at all. Prey is silky smooth at 1920x1200, demonstrating an average 71 frames per second! When 4xAA is applied, the frame rate does drop down a bit, but it's still quite playable at this very high resolution. The sub-$1000 PC is looking very good so far!

Let's move on to another popular first person shooter, Unreal Tournament 3:

Unreal was benchmarked without anti-aliasing enabled due to hardware limitations, but this gorgeous game engine played extremely well on the low-cost PC. Once again, even 1920x1200 is a viable resolution on this relatively inexpensive PC.

But we've been easy on the low-cost system until now, because we're about to benchmark the most demanding first person shooter devised by man, Crysis.