Intel's Pentium II chip and AMD's K6 equivalent have taken 'top-end' PCs into a new dimension, and the latest systems carry other class components to match. Expert Buyer examines TEN 233MHZ SYSTEMS

Last year it was 200MHz Pentiums. In January it was MMX. Now, if you want the best, then you need an Intel Pentium II (PII) or an AMD K6 ­ the fastest, most versatile processors yet to roll off the world's most sophisticated, and most expensive, production lines.

While the PII and K6 share many features on the inside (both carry the MMX instruction set, for instance), they are radically different on the outside. With Intel's departure from the socket architecture, down the patented Slot One path, the market has split. Until this year any Cyrix or AMD processor would fit into Intel's standard socket. Now, Intel is moving from sockets to slots, and closing the door behind it. You go into the Slot One architecture with Intel, or stay with Socket 7 which Intel is still supporting, but which in the long run will likely remain as AMD and Cyrix's domain.

For those who will simply buy a new PC four or five years down the line, this may not be a problem, but for IT managers who have to train staff and maintain mountains of the things, moving to an new architecture could be a massive headache.

Buyers of high-end PCs have never faced such tough decisions before and the decision is made yet more complicated by the presence of the Pentium Pro and, of course, the Pentium MMX. For the top performance, however, you can forget systems based on these processors, and move up to 233MHz PII and K6 systems now, and in the near future, to 266MHz and 300MHz PCs. Either way the processor will run 16bit applications faster than ever, and run 32bit applications with a kick of speed which not even the Pentium Pro is capable of.

To make the most of these chips you need Windows NT, Microsoft's 32bit operating system, which is more robust, more mature and more powerful than Windows 95. The only reason NT hasn't taken off on the desktop yet is the large amount of Ram required to run it, but in the last year, memory prices have plummeted; 32Mb is increasingly the norm and 64Mb is within the reach of most buyers.

This month, we look at 10 machines, all with 233MHz processors, all with NT and all with plenty of Ram. There are spectacular deals and some machines so well configured they'll blow your socks off. Read on to find out what to look for when making your decision, how the machines fared in our tests, and what we thought of them...