Desktop dream machines
This month we received the desktop machines that most of us mere mortals just dream about.
Contents  Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
The sort of PCs you might find on the desk of people who expect the best, a.k.a. the CxO, and those workers who put genuine demands on the capabilities of their computer system. These dream PCs could be used equally well in a range of departments where demands include working with large files, imaging, geographic information and mapping systems (GIS), video production, computer aided design, software development, or as test beds running multiple VM sessions. Most of these users also demand dual, or more, displays, therefore one of our pre-requisites was dual monitor support.
The dream machines of 2005 come to us with some really quite varied features, the latest processors, huge HDD capacity, loads of connectivity, impressive design, and their test results were also equally impressive. This selection certainly contains some racehorses that will be able to work to the highest demands of your business.
At the heart of every computer system is the central processing unit (CPU). While the CPU is critically important to the overall performance of the machine, the box is only as good as the sum of the individual components. As with most ICT technologies all it takes is one bottleneck for the whole show to come to a screeching halt.
Recent years have seen a change in the CPU-performance landscape. For a long time it was a matter of increasing megahertz (MHz), up into gigahertz (GHz), and while these sorts of capacities may not represent the true performance of an individual PC or server, they at least give an indication of the processor's capabilities. Quite a long time ago AMD deviated from the pure quotation of the internal clockspeed in MHz and GHz, and went for a relative performance labelling, ie 1800+, 3400+, and so on. This was intended as an indication as to where the processors were intended to sit. AMD initially copped quite a lot of flack for this -- supposedly for adding confusion to an already muddy picture. However, it has since become necessary to quote figures this way because internal CPU cache and other technologies might boost performance while not necessarily changing the clockspeed.
Interestingly the IBM PowerPC G5 chip goes up to 2.7GHz, AMD's latest is the Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ which runs at 2.4GHz, and Intel's latest is the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 which runs at 3.2GHz.
One of the Test Labs' other contracts is procurement testing for desktop, server, and notebook rollouts. Over the last 16 plus years, we have seen quite a change in the desktop and CPU landscape from 12MHz and 16MHz CPUs, to 3GHz plus.
One particular government contract we work on involves performance testing not only their initial short-list tender, but also re-testing each time the vendor changes the specs of machines. Over any three-year contract period you might have with a vendor, there is little chance the specification of the machines will remain constant. Usually specs go through four or five changes during this period. Some are simple, like hard disk improvements or changeovers from CD-ROMs to DVD-ROMs, however, others are more major changes such as mainboard or CPU improvements.
Interestingly, one particular group of notebooks underwent a change from 1.7GHz to 1.5GHz, which on paper looks like a slide backwards, but in fact, when tested, the newer 1.5GHz processor out performed the 1.7GHz -- mainly due to an increase in the internal cache.
Dell was keen to submit a product for this test and review, and indeed shipped the Precision 380 machine to us, only to have it go missing in transit. We can include the intended machine's specs in the feature table, but it is a pity we cannot include test results or more about the machine itself. Vendors who stepped up to the challenge were Acer, Alienware, Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Plus Corporation.
Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
First impressions of the Acer machine are of a stylish, purposeful machine. Predominantly black with a gunmetal grey highlighted front bezel, this machine oozes professionalism.
The front of the midi-tower sized machine has space for three 5¼in drives -- the top most was occupied by a DV-DRW drive. There is also space for two 3½in drives, but there was no floppy drive in the machine.
Probably the most outstanding feature of this chassis is the four top-mounted USB dock and two headset/microphone jacks. Most people would sit this machine next to them on the ground and the USB ports and jacks are nicely angled upwards. This is combined with a nifty integrated rubber pad which stops devices on top of it from slipping around.
The rear of the machine has a single IEC power socket, two PS/2 ports, 1 x DB9M serial port, an "onboard" 15-pin VGA connector, a DB25M parallel port, four more USB ports, a RJ45 network port, six audio jacks, two DVI ports, and an S-video port. There is also quite a bit of ventilation at the rear.
Access to the inside of the machine comes via two small thumb screws and a small latch. Like the outside, Acer branding is everywhere. Each of the fluorescent green keyless drive latches carry the name, as does the motherboard. The power supply unit is from the FSP Group and is only a 300-watt unit (FSP300-60THA(1)). The mainboard model is 81945AE. The 2.8GHz Intel CPU is cooled by an Acer-branded heatsink/fan combination which utilises a heatpipe design with air-cooled fins. Cooling the fins is a mid-sized fan. A single 160GB Seagate SATA Hard Disk drive resides in one of the five internal 3½in drive bays.
The video card is a monster NVidia 6800 with 256MB of RAM. Two Legend DDR2533 1GB memory modules provide a total of 2GB RAM with space still available for another two. There is only one free PCI card slot, and you may by this stage have noted that such a prodigious system does not have Firewire, so there goes the PCI slot if Firewire is a necessity. And if you need a modem, you can buy an external one.
The overall workmanship was slightly more untidy than we are used to seeing with this model. The screw-less design plastic card retention bracket had come adrift during shipping (another of several freight incidents), allowing the large, heavy, and expensive video card to come loose and move around inside the machine. Luckily when the card was re-seated the machine performed flawlessly.
In summary, this is a well-designed machine with plenty of drive expansion but limited card expansion. Factors such as the 300-watt power supply unit, non-matching keyboard/mouse with the tower, and the issue with the card retention bracket tend to detract from what really is quite an exciting machine.
The inclusion of serial and parallel ports along with the excellent top-mounted USB and audio ports tend to lead one to offset and forgive these other niggles, especially when the price (AU$3499) includes a 19in LCD monitor.
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Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
This is a beautiful, black, shiny, plastic machine with silver highlights. If you have never seen or heard of Alienware then have a look at the photos or the Web site.
These are definitely for the urban "arty" enterprises out there that have an upbeat New York open office/warehouse style, where a billiard table and pinball machine replace the mahogany boardroom table. The Apple PowerMac and the Alienware Aurora would certainly duke it out in the style stakes.
The front of the machine has four USB ports low down, and a lockable flip door which has clear plastic "pipes" to allow the power and hard disk status LEDs to shine through. Behind this are four 5¼in drive bays, one of which had a LG DVDRW burner installed, and two 3½in drive bays, one holding a floppy disk drive. The sides of the machine are very stylised but incorporate a number of practical things, such as a side-mounted cooling fan and a flip-open lockable panel used for opening up the chassis.
The rear of the machine has an IEC power connection and power switch, two PS/2 ports, a DB25 parallel port, SPDIF audio output, one Firewire port, two RJ45 network ports four more USB ports, six audio jacks, two DVI ports, an S-video port, and three Firewire 800 ports.
Once opened up you will find an amazing amount of space, only two of the six hard disk drive bays are filled. The hard disk drives incidentally are each SATA 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200s (ST3160827AS) configured in a striped RAID array to give a total of 320GB. The power supply unit is a Turbocool 510-watt unit (T51X-AW4), the mainboard is an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, capable of running two performance video cards, and there is plenty of expansion available with only a single video card installed and the Firewire 800 card taking up one of the three PCI slots. Memory is two Corsair 1GB modules (CMX1024-3200C2PRO) and CPU is an AMD 64-bit, and there is a Nvidia Quadro FX video card as well as a large exhaust fan on the rear of the machine.
The multimedia keyboard and ergonomic optical mouse combo are from Microsoft, with Alienware badges and design influences. The beauty of Alienware is its attention to detail, from the packaging through to the operating system, nothing has gone unchecked or unchanged. Alienware have customised the Microsoft Operating System to "Alienate" it -- to many this is what appeals.
This is a very impressive machine with a great spec, and certainly a unified look and branding feel and throughout. The price, however, at AU$5999 really is too high, even for all the customisation and high-performance kit. But hey, if you need the look, then cost could surely be sacrificed.
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Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
We got our exercise struggling to free the heavy Apple PowerMac from its box. Once out of it though, its stunning all-silver case dazzled, showing why it is still the lead in fashion and style stakes with its four winged handles and perforated metal face-plate.
The front of the machine has a power switch, headphone jack, one USB port, and one Firewire port. Each side of the machine has the Apple logo, and the rear of the machine (which is also heavily perforated for ventilation) is where most of the activity takes place. There are two fans and a small nifty latch to release the side panel which rotates to convert into a physical security lock either for a padlock, to deter would-be parts thieves, or for a cable lock to deter the would-be machine thief. The rear of the machine also sports a IEC power socket, two DVI ports, wireless antenna port, Bluetooth antenna port, two optical audio ports (in and out), two audio jacks (speaker and microphone/input), two more USB and Firewire ports, and an RJ45 port.
The design and stunning good looks carries through to the inside of this machine and being a proprietary system, there are relatively few off-the-shelf parts used so the designers have been able to ensure that the airflow, power supply, fans -- in fact everything -- has its place. It is even difficult to find too many cables let alone comment on how well they are tied back, as they are routed amazingly well.
There are basically four separate "zones" within the chassis -- the base of the machine is the power supply, above this is the CPU/memory, above this the expansion cards and right at the top is the drive zone. The machine we were supplied with had two G5 2.7GHz processors and a total of 2GB RAM. The size of the heatsink alone for the CPUs takes up at least a third, if not a quarter of the internal space.
The video card was a Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT DDL, which uses 256MB GDDR3 memory and which takes up two expansion slots -- and there are still two more expansion slots available. There is a single DVD-RW drive and one Maxtor SATA150 250GB hard disk drive unit (6B250S0), with space available for one more beneath this.
As with most things Apple, the keyboard and mouse are stylish. The mouse is optical and the keyboard has two more USB ports. The operating system we were supplied with was OSX 10.4 Tiger. Overall, this is an extremely well-refined package and it is little wonder people fall passionately in love with their Apple machines. It will be very interesting to see where the relationship with Intel takes their next generation.
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Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
We had another reason for concern when unpacking this HP machine. We were fairly sure that when the designers at HP developed this system they did not intend it to make a loud rattling sound like something had broken loose. The 12cm cooling fan had fallen away from the chassis and was making merry with whatever internal components it could crash into. We were sure that this one would not fire up, however, once the fan was re-seated the machine came up without any problems whatsoever -- they really are stronger than most people give them credit for.
The HP chassis is the most purposeful of all the machines submitted and certainly the most robust. Workstations have traditionally sat in the middle ground between average desktop machine and server systems, and this HP box definitely deserves the title "workstation".
The lower three quarters of the front panel is ventilation grill, to the right of this is a power button, power status LED, HDD activity LED, two USB ports, two audio jacks (headphones and microphone) and a Firewire port. The top quarter in the machine we were sent had two optical drives, a DVD-RW and DVD, as well as a floppy-disk drive mounted in a 5¼in kit.
The rear is quite sparse. There is a single IEC power socket, and a power status LED integrated into the PSU. A large exhaust grill provides the ventilation for the 12cm exhaust fan and there is one DB9M serial port, two PS2 ports, one RJ45 network port, four USB ports, one Firewire port, three audio ports, two DVI ports, and an S-video port. The rear also features a looped tab to allow locking of the side panel or for the use of a physical security cable so that the machine doesn't wander. There is also a chassis intrusion switch.
There are acres of room inside the machine despite the large mainboard and oversized power unit. This is partly due to the hard disk drives being mounted horizontally across the front of the machine instead of the traditional right angle. There is space for four 3 ½in hard disk drives, however, the unit we were supplied with came with a single 80GB SATA Western Digital Caviar SE WD800.
There are two PCI-Express X16 slots -- one is used for a NVidia Quadro FX card. Wedged in between these slots is a solitary PCI slot, which is virtually unusable given the heatsinks and son on on the video card. There are also three free PCI-X slots too (one 133MHz and two 100MHz). The power supply is a whopping 750-watts (Delta Electronics DPS-750CB).
The mainboard is a work of art, being a dual AMD Opteron with eight memory sockets. The machine we were submitted was configured for a single processor with two 512MB DDR 400, ECC, registered modules, giving a total of 1GB of RAM.
The HP has plenty of room for expansion in all regards, cards, CPU, drives, and memory. The workmanship left a little to be desired though -- there was only one re-usable nylon cable tie used to hold the cables back and there were several which could easily foul up with the CPU fan. The main cable cluster crossed immediately above the CPU fan, undoubtedly causing some obstruction to the airflow.
The operating system supplied was Windows XP Professional. The HP USB keyboard and optical mouse supplied with the machine matched the chassis well and were both of a simple no-fuss design. Overall this is a very neat machine with plenty of positives going for it that could feel right at home on any developer's or designer's desk.
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Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
When we saw the large Antec chassis box come through the door we suspected a Plus Corporation treat, and we were right -- we couldn't wait to play with it.
The chassis is almost as sturdy as the HP, and certainly just as well designed. The machine has a predominantly aluminium skin over a black plastic sheet -- effectively sandwiched between the outer aluminium skin and the metal shielding inside, which is excellent for sound deadening. The front face of the machine is mainly a double-hinged lockable aluminium door, which opens so that it can be folded right back against the side. When it is closed, the front Firewire, two USB ports, two audio jacks, a small blue power status LED, and the door-locking mechanism still show.
Behind the door is a silver power button, a smaller silver reset button, space for four 5¼in drives, and one 3½in drive. One was taken up with a DVD-RW drive and there was also a floppy disk drive installed. Interestingly, the drives can each be removed without the need for a screwdriver from the front of the machine. Behind the door is provision for two medium-sized fans which can be used to draw air into the chassis over the internal drive bays. When the door is closed the fans can still draw air, albeit limited through an array of ventilation slots built into the door's hinge and opposing side.
The rear of the machine has a phenomenal amount of ports available. Two PS/2, 25-pin parallel, SPDIF and optical audio out, one more Firewire, eight more USB, two RJ45 network ports, six audio jacks, two DVI, one S-video, one DB9M serial port, a games port, two external SATA ports, an external Mylex power socket, an IEC power socket, and a partridge in a pear tree. The rear of the unit also houses two ventilation grills -- one for the exhaust from the expansion card bay and one for the exhaust from the main system.
Once the side panel was removed our drooling continued. The machine is powered by an Antec Truepower 2.0 550-watt power supply unit (TP2-550EPS12V) which is housed in its own basement. All the case's internal metal edges are beautifully rounded and in front of the power supply is a large fan which draws air through the four by 3½in drive removable bay, which in turn are fed fresh air from the fan that could be mounted behind the front door.
There were no drives mounted in this lower bay, but immediately above this is a second removable drive bay which housed two more 3½in drives, and two SATA150 Maxtor 300GB drives (7L300S0) in a striped RAID array (600GB total). Again the second optional fan behind the front door if installed could feed air over these drives.
Moving into the mainboard zone now, most of which is covered by a plastic vent designed to exhaust heat from the expansion-card zone, another fan can be mounted. The mainboard itself is an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. SLI basically means that it can support two video cards, one in each of its two PCI Express slots -- sadly the machine we were shipped had just one PCI Express 16 video card -- a Nvidia GeForce 7800.
There are three free PCI slots, and two banks of memory with two sockets each, one bank populated with two 1GB Geil PC3200 DDR400 memory modules for a total of 2GB with room for 2GB more. The heatsink covering the AMD Athlon Dual Core 64 Bit CPU would have looked more at place sticking out of Mad Max's bonnet with several copper pipes snaking back and forth under a fine mesh grill surrounding yet another fan. With up to nine fans, the unit we were shipped had five -- one would imagine the space shuttle taking off could be quieter but this machine was one of the quietest.
The machine was supplied with Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. The keyboard and mouse almost stand out as much as the machine itself -- a Logitech MX3100 cordless bundle. This is a machine that (in both senses) could have more fans than your average football team. The Plus Corporation machine has raised the peg when it comes to dream machines.
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| Model | Veriton 7800 | Aurora 7500 | PowerMac Dual 2.7GHz | XW9300 | Altera X2-4800 |
| Vendor | Acer | Alienware | Apple Computer | Hewlett-Packard | Plus Corporation |
| List price | AU$3499 incl LCD | AU$5999 | AU$6009 | AU$5500 | AU$4599 |
| Phone number | 1300 559 024 | 08 8300 7590 | 133 622 | 131 347 | 1800 007 587 |
| Warranty | 3 years | 12 months | 12 months | 3 years | 3 years |
| Web site | www.acer.com.au | www.alienware systems.com.au | www.apple.com.au | www.hp.com.au | www.pluscorp .com.au |
| Processor brand | Intel | AMD | IBM | AMD | AMD |
| Processor model (in test configuration) | 830 | Athlon Athlon 64 X2 4600+ | PowerPC G5 (64 Bit) | Opteron 200 | Athlon 64 X2 4800+ |
| Processor speed | 3.0 GHz | 2400 MHz | 2.7GHz | 2.8GHz | 2.4GHz |
| Max processor speed supported by motherboard | 3.8GHz | 2800 MHz | 2.7GHz | 254/1GHz | N/A |
| Motherboard brand | Acer | Asus | Apple Computer | HP | Asus |
| Motherboard model | G945MK | AMD SLI PCI E | Apple Computer | HP xw9300 | A8N-SLI Deluxe |
| Hard drive speed | 7200RPM | 7200 RPM | 7200RPM | 7200RPM | 7200RPM |
| Hard drive type and capacity | SATA x 1 | 160GB x 2 | SATA 250GB x 1 | SATA 80GB x 1 | SATA / 300GB x 2 |
| Memory | 1GB | DDR, 1024MB | DDR400 SDRAM | DDR PC3200 | Dual-Channel DDR 400 |
| Speed of memory | PC4300 | PC3200 | PC3200 | 400MHz | 400MHz PC3200 |
| Max memory supported by motherboard | 4GB | 2GB | 8GB | 16GBâ€" 2GB DIMMs, 32GBâ€"4GB DIMMs | 4GB |
| Total system RAM | 2GB | 2GB | 2GB | 1GB | 2GB |
| Brand of video card | NVIDIA | NVIDIA | NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT DDL | NVIDIA Quadro | BFG |
| Video card chipset | 6800 | Quadro FX 3400 | NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics processor | NVS280/ 285, FX540, FX1400, FX3450, FX4500 | GeF 7800GTX |
| Video card memory | 256MB | 256MB | 256MB | n/a | 256MB |
| Type of video outputs and inputs | 1 x VGA | 2 x DVI | ADC, DVI and VGA | 2 x DVI, 1 x Svideo OUT | 2 x DVI, 1 x Svideo OUT |
| RAID capable and type | No | Raid 0 SATA | Xserve RAID with Apple Fibre Channel PCI-X Card | SATA RAID 0, 1, optional SCSI RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 50, JBOD | RAID 0 |
| Modem | No | No | Optional | Third party | No |
| Network | Integrated Marvell 88E8052 | 2 x Gigibit Ethernet Yukon | Apple Computer | Broadcom 5751Gigabit PCIe, Broadcom 5782 | ASUS M/B Dual Gigabit LAN and AI NET2 |
| Audio | Embedded -Intelâ ICH7 with Intel HD Audio codec | 5.1 Channel onboard | Apple, Optical digital audio | AC'97 integrated audio with internal speaker; Optional Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PCI | 8 Channel audio output with Coaxial and optical |
Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
How we tested
We evaluated each of the systems supplied for this review according to a range of objective and subjective criteria such as:
- Workmanship and design including ergonomics.
- Robustness and durability.
- System expandability including the number of PCI, and AGP slots that were available, I/O ports, upgradability of CPU, memory, and hard drive.
- Audio including the audio chip, type of input/output, their location etc.
- Keyboard including key size, spacing, layout, travel, feedback, support, and colour differentiation.
- Pointing device including the general ergonomics such as location, button size, travel, feedback, features, and functionality.
We also rated each of the machines in the areas of interoperability, futureproofing, return on investment, and service. See the tables on each product page.
We ran the usual array of system-performance tests and benchmarks against the Intel and AMD processor based machines -- with some very impressive results. Naturally the Apple machine was not compatible with any of the tests due to its vastly different architecture. The Ziff-Davis Business Winstone and Content Creation Winstone are also not compatible with the 64-bit operating system that was installed on the Plus Corporation machine, therefore we could not test either BWS or CCWS, however, the other tests ran well on it.
Test bench
| Interoperability We looked at the number of USB connectors, FireWire, legacy connectors, DVI and S-Video connectors. | |
| Futureproofing Expansion potential, system and video RAM, Network capabilities and the number of vacant drive bays. | |
| ROI The overall performance and cost of the machine. | |
| Service Length of the warranty and how many years parts were covered for. |
Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
The results were interesting to say the least. Plus Corporation tended to lead in the majority of the tests, CPU (except for CPU multimedia), HDD and graphics, however they lose out to Hewlett-Packard in memory bandwidth. Acer also beat Plus Corp's machine in memory testing. The Alienware was a mixed bag, coming last in the Sandra Pro memory tests but clearly coming first in the CPU multimedia tests and coming marginally first in the Content Creation Winstone test. Naturally with the Apple running Tiger none of the benchmarks could be run.
The reason the results were particularly interesting was because while the machines were of similar specifications, with similar speeds, video cards and memory, they certainly didn't perform the same. Comparing features between the relatively custom designed AlienWare and Plus Corporation machines, you would expect these two would perform almost identically, however the results showed the Plus Corporation flew. At a saving of almost AU$1500 it really isn't hard to make a decision which way to go.
The Acer was the silent achiever of the pack. While not blitzing the field it wins the price versus performance stakes, particularly as it includes a 19in LCD monitor! This puts it at almost half the price of the majority of the competition.
Our initial impressions looking at the features of the machines suggested it would be a hotly contest between Alienware, Plus Corporation and Hewlett-Packard. HP may have been in with a chance had they supplied the extra CPU and a striped HDD array, and Alienware really didn't make any dents in the Plus Corporation machine. Futureproofing depends on which way you look at it -- memory and CPU expansion go to the HP, expansion card and drives go to the Plus Corp.
Overall the Plus Corp machine came out on top with first in five of the tests and last in none, the AlienWare came second with firsts in three of the tests and last in two of them, the Acer came in the middle with first in none of the tests and last in three of them, however holding its own in most of the tests, and the HP came last with firsts in three of the tests (Business WinStone 2004, and the two Sandra Pro memory tests) and last in six of them (mostly video and CPU tests).
Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||
The scenario this month is;
This company is currently evaluating high-end performance desktop systems. The IT manager wants to bring in uniform specs for 30 high-end systems across the following departments: training, engineering design, software development, and marketing. This requires a system suitable for developers working with VM, training and marketing who produce training DVDs and detailed PDFs, and their CAD designers who use two displays.
Approximate budget: Maximum AU$6000 per desktop PC, but consideration will be given to performance vs. cost.
Requires: A desktop PC with a minimum of 1GB memory and 100GB HDD unit, 1Gb NIC, DVD Burner, Windows XP Pro pre-installed, USB and Firewire. The company will be sourcing high-end 19" LCD monitors elsewhere and they already have multimedia speaker systems (2.1).
Concerns: Overall/Outright performance is critical -- so the faster the better while maintaining value for money. And it must be able to support a minimum of two monitors.
You need to supply: One high-end performance desktop PC system, mouse, and keyboard, and all cables and manuals (no monitors or speakers required).
Scenario winner and Editor's choiceFinal Words
We would like to say a quick thank you to Acer who kindly supplied us with two 20" AL2032W widescreen LCD displays to use for this testing. A high- performance machine would not be complete without some really decent peripherals like this.
If you are after the fastest desktops currently around then you would be very hard pressed to go past the offerings in this review. I am now keeping my fingers crossed that the machines actually all get back to their respective vendors in-tact and with no more freight mishaps.
Contents Introduction Acer Veriton 7800 Alienware Aurora 7500 Apple PowerMac 2.7Ghz HP XW9300 Workstation Plus Altera X2 4800 Specifications How we tested Results analysis Editor's choice About RMIT | ||||