Acer Veriton M4618G-Ui72601W

The Acer Veriton M4618G-Ui72601W ($799 list) is a solid tower business desktop for the SMB market. It's powerful, with a quad-core processor that will make quick work of clerical and mid-level graphics tasks. It's a bit utilitarian looking, but that's fine considering the price. If you're looking to grab a few systems for your new (or slowly expanding) office, then put this desktop near the top of your list.

Design and Features
Design-wise, the M4618G-Ui72601W is a staid tower business PC, similar in looks to the Acer Veriton M498G-UI5650C ($699 list, 4 stars) we looked at a while back. That's actually a good thing, since you can roll out the M4618G-Ui72601W in your organization and people with the older Acer M498G systems won't be any wiser at a glance. It has the expansion space that just about any power user will need: two free memory slots, a PCIe x16 graphics card slot, two PCIe x1 slots, a PCI slot, plus space for up to five additional hard drives. The included 300W power supply unit is sufficient for hard drive support (the motherboard can support up to three before you have to resort to an add-on SATA card), but you won't be running an 180W or higher graphics card in this system. Thankfully, lower-end graphics cards made to drive multiple monitors work with as little as 18W of power. The desktop has a plethora of external ports: ten USB 2.0 ports, DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, audio, serial, plus the usual Ethernet and audio jacks. Between the DVI, VGA, and DisplayPort (2 of 3 are in use), you can support two monitors for extra efficiency and screen space. The system even includes a pair of PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports in case your users have old keyboards and mice they can't let go of. The system doesn't have newer speedy USB 3.0 or eSATA ports, but you can easily add these with PCIe cards.

The M4618G-Ui72601W comes with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit pre-installed, but the restore utility will let you install a 32-bit version instead if your apps aren't 64-bit compatible. Of course, be aware that resetting the OS may erase any data you've put on the system. Make sure to choose before you roll the system out to your users. Speaking of roll-out, the desktop comes relatively free of pre-installed software. The system instead asks you if you want utility and trial programs to be installed during the initial setup procedure. That way you can choose if you want stuff like Norton Online Backup or Acer's ProShield security software on your users' systems or not. While not as informative as looking up each program online, the setup utility gives you a short description of each program and a checkbox, so you will be informed on what you're installing. This procedure is a great feature, and we hope it becomes common on all desktops with bloatware pre-loads.

Performance
The M4618G-Ui72601W has very good performance on our benchmark tests, thanks to its quad-core Intel Core i7-2600 processor. It helps the system gain one of the highest scores we've seen on PCMark 7 (2,851 points), outscoring the professional workstation Lenovo ThinkStation E30 ($1,019 direct, 3.5 stars) (2,770 points) and our previous business desktop speed champ, the Dell Optiplex 990 ($1,905 direct, 3.5 stars) (2,601 points). Likewise, the desktop takes very little time with the multimedia benchmark tests (1:14 Handbrake, 3:04 Photoshop CS5). Essentially, this system is fast now, and should serve you well for at least the next four to five years. This is plenty of time to amortize the system in your capital budget.

The Acer Veriton M4618G-Ui72601W has a lot to offer the SMB owner: quad-core power, lots of expansion room, and that great setup utility where you can tell the system what bloatware is actually useful to you. The system's design is kind of utilitarian, but that's what you want in a business system. The desktop lies somewhere between SMB and enterprise level hardware, since it doesn't have the disk image (long life ordering support) guarantees that you might get with the Editors' Choice for SMB/midrange business systems HP Compaq 4000 Pro ($549 direct, 4.5 stars), but the Acer M4618G-Ui72601W certainly should appear on your short list if you only need a few units.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Acer Veriton M4618G-Ui72601W with several other desktops side by side.

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