Systemax Ascent A728 Budget Desktop PC

Oct 28 2009 - Systemax's A782 desktop is a mix system. On the one hand, it comes with 8GB of memory that lets it run even the most memory intensive applications without slowdowns. The problem is that they use a very date AMD processor that puts it on the lower end of the performance scale for budget systems. It's fine for basic web, internet and multimedia but don't expect it to perform higher end applications without issues.

Oct 28 2009 - It is not uncommon to see AMD processors in budget systems. The company sells a wide range of processors that can be found for under $100 compared to Intel's slim offerings. The problem is that Systemax decided to use an older AMD Athlon X2 5000+ processor in the A782 desktop. Sure it has two cores and will run basic applications just fine but there are many other systems in the $500 price range that offer much higher performance processors.

Systemax makes up for the slower processor a bit by including 8GB of DDR2 memory. This is double what most companies include in their budget desktops. This has the advantage of helping those people that use applications that tend to use a large amount of memory or who multitask frequently. The problem is that most of these applications would probably benefit more from a faster processor than the additional memory.

Another big difference with the Systemax A782 is teh wide range of peripheral connectors included on the system. Connectors are offered for each of the major video outputs including VGA, DVI and HDMI. Peripheral connectors also have a great variety including FireWire and eSATA ports that typically are not found on budget desktops.

One nice aspect of the Systemax A782 is the lack of trialware. Many budget systems include these programs as a means to help reduce the costs but they eat p system resources and drive space. Expect a much smoother operating system experience with the lack of these programs.

With a $500 price tag, the Systemax A782 may seem like a good deal. The problem is that the overall pieces of the system make that price higher than it really should. For the same price, it is possible to either get more features or better performance.