ASUS IS FINALLY taking the step that you knew they would, they are making PCs. Low and high end machines are first out of the gate, complimenting the laptops and accessories they already make.

First one is the Ares, a gaming machine if that is not blindingly obvious by the oversized stylish carbon fibre case.

Asus Ares Gaming PC

It will be sold through vendors and the channel as a complete box with enough variants to satisfy most people. It has a brand new keyboard with a round swivelling game key add-on to the left and customized Logitech G9 mouse.

Asus Essentio PC and monitor

On the other end of the spectrum is a tiny 3 litre PC called the Essentio CS5110. It is a home theatre-based quiet PC packing a BD-Rom and an Nvidia 8600GT. This little box is a channel product sold as a complete unit, with several SKUs available. Next to it is the MK241H monitor, the largest of the Asus monitor range. The important thing is that they are now putting a Webcam and speakers as options on all their monitors, trying to drive the multimedia aspect. Given how much I use the Webcam on my laptops, zero +/- nothing, this isn't a big draw for me, but some people seem to like the idea.

G70 gaming notebook

Last up we have the G70 gaming notebook resplendent in an off orange colour. The notebook itself is commendably thin for this class of product, and packs a 17-inch screen, 1920*1200 res, two 8700GS GPUs and two HDs. It you must stoop to using a gaming laptop, this is one of the better ones we have seen, but we still think the class of products are aimed at people who clean their ears with screwdrivers and are impressed by the acting in The Fast and the Furious 3.

In the end, the biggest news from Asus wasn't that they had one product or other, but the simple fact that they had were finally taking the plunge into box builderhood. It wouldn't surprise us if they were a top five box slinger in a year, this is sure to shake up the market. µ