Acer AM3470-UC30P Desktop PC Review
Acer AM3470-UC30P Desktop PC Review by Thereviewspoint.com
Pros
Includes 23-inch monitor. Spacious hard drive. Wi-Fi enabled. USB 3.0. Some gaming prowess. Two-year warranty.
Cons
Limited expansion options. So-so performance.Bottom Line
The Acer AM3470-UC30P won’t break any performance records, but it does offer some nice features at a very affordable price.
Design and Features
The AM3470-UC30P uses a matte black mid-tower case with a curved glossy black front panel and a glossy top. As with the Gateway DX4860-UB33P ($599.99 list, 4 stars) the top contains a tray for holding cell phones and other small devices, but the M3470′s tray has four USB ports to the DX4860-UB33P’s two. Here you’ll find headphone and microphone jacks as well. At the very top of the front panel are four card reader slots; below them are two optical drive bays, one of which holds a DVD multi-drive (the other is vacant). A shiny Acer logo adorns the center of the panel.
The AM3470-UC30P’s 1TB hard drive provides plenty of storage for applications, photo albums, and audio and video files. It comes with Window 7 Home Premium and a handful of Acer utilities, including eRecovery Management data restoration software, and Clear.fi, Acer’s multimedia streaming and sharing software. You also get Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition, Nero 10 burning software, and Zune’s video and music player. As with all PCs sold at Costco, the AM3470-UC30P comes with a two-year warranty as opposed to the manufacturer’s standard one-year plan. It also comes with Costco’s Concierge Service, which provides toll-free technical support, troubleshooting, and setup advice.
Performance
As with the HP Pavilion p7-1126s ($559.99 list, 3.5 stars), the AM3470-UC30P uses AMD’s A8-3800 quad-core APU which runs at 2.4GHz. It also comes with 6GB of DDR3 memory and uses an on-chip Radeon HD 6550D graphics solution. And, as was the case with the P7-1126s, the AM3470 couldn’t quite keep up with similarly-priced desktops armed with Intel’s Core i3 CPU. Its 2,081 PCMark 7 score was almost 500 points below the HP Pavilion p7-1030 (2,536), which was equipped with a 3.1GHz Intel Core i3 processor, but was nearly identical to the A8-based Pavilion p7-1126s (2,083). On our Cinebench R11.5 CPU test, the AM3470′s score of 2.94 was slightly higher than the p7-1126s (2.88), but still trailed the Lenovo IdeaCentre K330-11691AU (2.98) by a hair and significantly behind the Gateway DX4860-UB33P (4.92).
When it came to handling multimedia tasks, the results were similar. The AM3470-UC30P needed 5 minutes 55 seconds to complete our Photoshop CS5 test, while the Lenovo K330-11691AU finished it in 3:49 and Gateway DX4860-UB33P finished it in 3:25. Likewise, the AM3470-UC30P required 2:33 to encode a video in Handbrake, and the Lenovo K330-11691AU did it in 2:12, and Gateway DX4860-UB33P did it in 1:19.
The AM3470-UC30P’s embedded Radeon GPU is by no means a high-end gaming class graphics solution, as evidenced by its Lost Planet 2 DX11 score of 19.4 fps (frames per second) while running at a resolution of 1,280-by-720 with effects set to middle quality. You typically want at least 30fps for smooth game play. With the resolution set to 1,920-by-1,080 and effects set to high quality, it managed a paltry 5.9 fps.
It ran our DirectX 10 Crysis test at 40fps at 1,280-by-720 resolution at Medium quality settings, but with the resolution cranked up to 1,920-by-1,080 and quality set to Very High, the AM3470-UC30P yielded unplayable results (5.29fps). If gaming is on your agenda, you’ll have to adjust the in-game settings accordingly.
The Acer AM3470-UC30P isn’t a powerhouse, but it has enough muscle to handle your everyday home productivity and multimedia workload and offers niceties such as USB 3.0, wireless networking, a hefty hard drive, and a 23-inch monitor. There are better performing desktops in the $600 price range, including the Lenovo K330-11691AU and Gateway DX4860-UB33P, but you’ll have to shell out another $200 or more for a monitor.
The HP Pavilion p7-1167cb comes with a monitor, but it’s $300 more and won’t provide such amenities as four DIMM slots for expansion, USB 3.0, and graphics performance. If you’re more concerned with value than performance, the AM3470-UC30P is an excellent choice and joins the HP Pavilion p7-1167cb as our Editors’ Choice for mid-range desktops.
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