Aberdeen Power P5-MMXPACKING THE ULTIMATE PENTIUM PUNCH
Eight New Systems
Leverage the Power Of
Intel's 233MHz MMX
Pentium
by Stephen W. Plain
Originally published in the
October 1997 issue ofComputer Shopper
©1997 Ziff Davis Publications All
rights reserved
Competitive Benchmarks
The Aberdeen Power P5-MMX assembled for this story
offers good performance and solid components, but its
$3,162 direct price makes it the second-most-expensive
system we tested.
The Power P5-MMX uses the SuperMicro P5MMA
motherboard, which provides two DIMM slots and four
SIMM slots. Aberdeen puts the system's 32MB of SDRAM
in one DIMM, leaving the second DIMM slot free. The
SuperMicro provides two integrated USB connectors, but
the system we tested arrived without OSR 2.1--the
Windows 95 update that supports USB.
To access the machine's interior, you pop off the front
panel and remove three screws that secure the left side
panel. The chassis makes room for as many as three
accessible 3.5-inch, two accessible 5.25-inch, and two
internal 3.5-inch devices. Four fans vigorously ventilate
the interior, making the P5-MMX the most aggressively
cooled system in this roundup.
The Power P5-MMX tied for top honors with four other
systems on our Business Winstone 97 test. A speedy
5GB Maxtor DiamondMax hard drive helped give the
system the highest Business Disk WinMark 97 of this
roundup--1,250. In our test system, the drive was
formatted as one 4,871MB FAT32 volume.
The Power P5-MMX's impressive hard drive speed helped
offset its below-average Business Graphics WinMark 97
results. For graphics, the system depends on a 4MB
Diamond Multimedia Stealth 3D 2000 card. This card
provides modest 3-D acceleration in addition to handling
2-D chores. Aberdeen's 17-inch monitor--a ViewSonic
GT770--displays a good but unspectacular image.
The Aberdeen's audio subsystem features Creative Labs'
top-of-the-line Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold sound card.
The system's MidiLand MLi-130A speakers lack a bass
unit. Unlike most speaker systems we saw during this
roundup, however, both speakers provide two drivers--a
4-inch woofer and a 2-inch tweeter.
The Power P5-MMX also comes with 3Com Corp.'s U.S.
Robotics Sportster 56K modem, which supports
3Com/U.S. Robotics' x2 technology, though it lacks
voice, speakerphone, and Caller-ID features.
The system's software bundle features Microsoft Office
97 Professional Edition, two games, and
communications software. Impressively, Aberdeen
includes four years of onsite service in this package,
though the company offers technical support only on
weekdays and only during certain hours.
The Power P5-MMX delivers strong performance and
laudable features, holding its own overall. Its
considerable price ranks as its biggest drawback.
©1997
Ziff Davis Publications All rights reserved
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