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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strikeback03 - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
My wife had a friend build her current desktop for her before I met her, one day last winter I upgraded her graphics drivers and was greeted by a message saying the 6-pin cable to her 8600GTS was not connected and graphics performance could be degraded until it was. The PSU had a 6-pin cable, the guy just didn't use it for some reason, but in everything she did with the system that configuration still worked.Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
I don't think your particular example of a power supply is a good one, though. Corsair's power supplies are notorious for being underrated and handling power draw well over spec.The power supply will age, and continuing to run it at an extreme load can substantially reduce its useful life. A 300W cheapo power supply like the unit used in the Acer doesn't have a whole lot of room to grow, is probably horribly inefficient, and with too much load placed on it will be liable to burn out...right after the warranty is up.
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
And as a sidenote, while it's true that I think hardware enthusiasts tend to grossly overshoot their recommendations for power supplies, decent power supplies for home machines pretty much start at 380W anymore. The power supply should have a little breathing room, room to grow. The 300W - again, not a decent power supply but a bargain bin one that couldn't hope to actually produce that much power under actual usage conditions - in the Acer is starting out bad and just going worse from there.cjb110 - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
We all like to rag on the bloatware installed, and I've yet to find any one that's actually had a use for any of it. But does it actually harm? Is the performance actually degraded?Could be a basis for an article? esp if you can get the manufactures input as to why they bother? Do they actually recieve anything? Are their machines better recieved by the public? Does Norton/McAfee pay them? Does ebay pay just for an icon?
awaken688 - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
They did run a recent RAM used at startup. A clean Win 7 used like 750MB, but the other OEM machines were running 1GB+ from Dell, etc... It would be nice to see a benchmark though.7Enigma - Monday, August 9, 2010 - link
One of the often overlooked things with systems that have a lot of bloat is the effect on power consumption of the system. Idle power consumption can be dramatically higher which can add to electricity/cooling costs while making the system more sluggish in general.ImSpartacus - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
This is impressive, but the enthusiast can not be beaten.I got a similar build for under $500 (after rebates and shipping) with no OS, keyboard or mouse. I used Newegg to do it. It has 3 combos, 2 coupons and 4 rebates.
Antec Nine Hundred (-$15 coupon) (-$20 rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
WD 640GB Caviar Black (-$20 coupon)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
EVGA GTX 460 768MB
OCZ 2x2GB 1600MHz DDR3 (-$20 rebate) (-$17 combo)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.asp...
OCZ Gamerstream 500W PSU (-$15 rebate)
LITE-ON DVD Burner (-$20 combo)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.asp...
Intel i3 530
Biostar TH55B HD H55 Motherboard (-$10 rebate) (-$49.98 combo)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.asp...
Yes, that's a brand new GTX 460 768MB. You could save quite a bit if you cut that out, but I'm a gamer. If you desired, you could probably get a quad core CPU in there if you got a cheaper graphics card.
And I understand this is an incredible hassle for such a deal. I know first hand. I purchased a Dell 7100 for my parents (before it was reviewed here) for $700 on sale just because it was convenient.
Hurray for affordable computing!
silverblue - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
Nice build, but I'd go for the 1GB flavour of the GTX 460 - better chip, more memory. :)ImSpartacus - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
LOL!You have to draw the line somewhere, eh?
Oh and the build is under $600, not $500. Typo on my part.
JarredWalton - Friday, August 6, 2010 - link
But you really do have to include OS for sure, and probably keyboard and mouse, if you want to be fair in the comparison. Sure, lots of people "have an OS lying around" (code for pirated software usually), but even if you really have a legit spare copy, that copy cost you money at some point. That's like saying, "Oh, I have a good case and PSU, so I can get the cost down to $400."Anyway, we'll see about getting a new budget guide up some time in the near future. I just need to ping a few cohorts and see who wants to write it. Maybe Dustin can do it.... :-)