The Acer Aspire M3400: How Much Does $649 Buy?
by Dustin Sklavos on August 5, 2010 3:45 PM ESTAcer Aspire M3400 User Experience and Performance
Okay, so it's clear we're not going to get a whole lot more out of the Acer Aspire M3400 than what we've got (at least not without spending $50 or so on a better PSU). How does that fare at least? In terms of noise, the M3400 is at least fairly quiet, but that's to be expected given the reasonable 95W TDP of the processor and the quiet cooling on the Radeon HD 5450, a card which in and of itself barely draws any power and thus generates very little heat.
One of the benefits of the rapid increase in performance of desktop hardware is the ability of the processor and memory to handle bloat. Microsoft did their share in mitigating it in Windows 7, but Acer's machine doesn't feel sluggish despite the amount of software it comes installed with. OEMs are often able to hit their low prices on desktop machines by being paid by software vendors to include trials on their machines, and the M3400 is no different.
Acer's $649 desktop comes packed with the usual suspects: McAfee, intent on taking over the antivirus market using any means other than actually producing quality software, is of course accounted for here. Norton even makes an appearance with their Online Backup software. The desktop also comes littered with icons for Microsoft Works, a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2007, Nero SmartStart, MyWinLocker (which starts in the tray and can't be disabled or exited short of closing it in Task Manager), and then Acer Games, Acer Registration, and even icons for eBay and Netflix. There's Acer Arcade Deluxe, which impressively has nothing to do with games but is instead a way to organize photos, videos, and music. And there's Acer Games, which does include a couple of casual games as well as a virtual storefront for buying other ones.
Honestly, the bloat could be a heck of a lot worse and again, it doesn't really affect the user experience. Dell's software on the Studio XPS 7100 just loved to pop up and intrude at random intervals, and the software on the Samsung N210 netbook I recently reviewed was even worse (due in no small part to the Atom's utter inability to handle even the most minimal of system bloat). The Aspire M3400, on the other hand, is fairly reasonable once you rip McAfee Internet Security's beating heart from the system and show it to its children before setting it on fire and consigning it to the abyssal hellscape from whence it came.
Our performance figures largely reflect that. The only other system we've tested recently is the Dell XPS 7100, which has a six-core processor and an HD 5870 GPU. It also costs twice as much. Outside of graphics work, though, the M3400 certainly holds up well.
| General Performance Overview | ||
| Dell XPS 7100 | Acer M3400 | |
| PCMark Vantage | 6740 | 7601 |
| Cinebench R10 1-CPU | 3596 | 3252 |
| Cinebench R10 x-CPU | 16140 | 11553 |
| X264 720p Encode Pass 1 | 77.29 | 60.58 |
| X264 720p Encode Pass 2 | 24.79 | 18.25 |
The Phenom II X4 820's extra cores help it overcome competition from the Intel Core i3 and i5 dual cores that dot this end of the price spectrum, and we're comfortable saying the processor can handle pretty much any task you throw at it. The 820 is a solid value. If you want a look at how the 820 stacks up against other CPUs, look at the results of the Phenom II X4 920 and the Athlon II X4 630 in our Bench database; the 920 will be slightly faster, and obviously the GPUs are different, but overall it's a decent processor.
| 3DMark Performance Results | ||
| Dell XPS 7100 | Acer M3400 | |
| 3DMark Vantage Performance | 15533 | 1283 |
| 3DMark Vantage Entry | 30856 | 6639 |
| 3DMark06 | 18209 | 3720 |
| 3DMark05 | 22312 | 6645 |
| 3DMark03 | 69538 | 9381 |
Of course, the Radeon HD 5450 couldn't possibly be asked to pull its weight in graphics heavy applications. DirectX 11 or not, it's just not adequate for anything but the most basic of gaming, relegating it to the HD decoding duties the on-board 880G probably would've managed just fine on its own. Certainly you can play any modern game on the 5450 and it's about twice as fast as the 880G, but you're going to be running most games released in the past two years at low resolutions (1366x768) and low settings.
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fishak - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
So you returned your system to factory config, loosing all your settings, programs, and tweaks. You had to reinstall everything you liked, and again dump everything you didn't.I suggest using a free imaging tool, like Macrium Reflect, and make an image of your OS/program partition once you have it set up the way you like it. That way, it's very simple and fast to return your system to your specs- and not the factories.
frozentundra123456 - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
Not really. I had a backup using Acronis that I used to restore data, photos, etc. I did not restore from that because I was having some problems with some programs when I made the backup, so I restored to factory original and just restored my data.anactoraaron - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
I still prefer WHS :)Bonesdad - Thursday, August 5, 2010 - link
You say you can build a better machine than this Aspire, then do it...build a machine for $650 and put it to the test against the Dell and the Acer. I bet it might exceed both of these machines.mckirkus - Thursday, August 5, 2010 - link
If you don't mind a generic power supply and generic motherboard (probably where they're saving money) then it looks like a deal. But if you want a system that lasts those are the only two items I think about.frozentundra123456 - Thursday, August 5, 2010 - link
I have an acer with an E4500 and probably the same 300 watt power supply. I am running a low power 9800 GT without problems, although a quad core CPU will use more power. I would think the reviewed system could use a GT240 or HD5670. If they could have included one of those cards instead of the 5450 it would have made a much more functional system.The power supply in OEM systems is one thing that really irritates me though. How much could it cost to make the unit 400 or 500 watts instead of 300W. If it is the same as the one in my comp, the unit in that computer does not even have 2 four pin leads to use with an adapter for a 6 pin connector.
reapergato - Thursday, August 5, 2010 - link
Yea... Amazon is quickly becoming a FAV for CA residents.... kinda like the same way Newegg is the fav for WA state residents..... I cant stand that nearly 10% sales tax in WA state so i refuse to buy anything from Amazon. They nail me on tax and shipping.... Newegg is usually free shipping... and no tax. =)Phate- - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
300Watt is more then enough, for anything. If there is a problem with the power supply it'll be the quality or the lack of connections for a better GPU. But with 300Watt you can run anything, except HD5870 (or higher) and GTX465 (or higher), if it's a decent power supply. Any decent power supply can provide (a lot) more then indicated on it's label and in the very least, it's made to provide the power indicated on the label, non-stop.An extreme example is the Corsair VX450, a review of it on hardwaresecrets.com:
They pull 570Watt from it while it still is operating WITHIN ATX-standards, without to much ripple/noise and still having an efficiency of 81%.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Corsair-VX4...
I'm not saying I would recommend someone buying a 300Watt PSU, when his config requires 280Watt, but if it's a decent powersupply, there is no problem, at all. I can understand the complaint about the PSU, but the wattage is not the important factor here.
frozentundra123456 - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
Yes I wonder this too. Except for the prompts that pop up automatically, I dont really think having the extra stuff there is a problem with all the processing power of a new computer. I benchmarked Company of Heros with my system in the usual configuration, security essentials running, etc, and then used game booster to shut down all unnecessary programs. I could not tell any difference in the frame rate.frozentundra123456 - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
The acer 300 watt power supply is not a very good one, and as I stated, I could not find even 2 x 4 pin connectors for an adapter, much less a 6 pin connector. The total amps on the 12 volt rail is only 18. So I think you could run anything that does not require an extra power adapter, but you are out of luck otherwise.Just a theoretical question. What if you used something like a HD4770 or HD5750 that has an adapter but uses very little power? Would the computer know the adapter was not plugged in and give an error message, or would it work ok unless the card overloaded the power supply?