PC Magazine May 31, 1994 v13 n10 p148(2)
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(Acer America Corp) (one of 14 evaluations of RISC workstations in 'RISC Workstations: Ready for the Desktop?')
Yegyazarian, Anush
Acer America Corp's $8,179 AcerFormula 4400 turns in an adequate performance compared with other NT systems tested. The AcerFormula 4400, based on the 150MHz MIPS R4400 chip, is designed as a high-end technical workstation, and it features 32MB of RAM and a 128MB cache, which is not upgradeable. A dual-speed Toshiba CD-ROM drive and a 1.04GB Fujitsu SCSI-2 drive run off an adapter on the proprietary PICA bus are also included with the AcerFormula 4400. The system performs well on the Khornerstone and single-precision Whetstone tests, but it turns in average or below average scores on the other tests. The lack of optimization on the NT-based RISC systems results in low scores in the double-precision Whetstone tests. Acer's system turns in the lowest score of the 14 systems tested on the 16-bit Excel Windows emulation test, and its Pro Engineer test scores are among the lowest.
List price: $8,179.
Processor/memory: MIPS R4400/150 CPU, 32MB RAM, 128K external cache.
Data storage: Fujitsu M2694ESA 1.04GB SCSI hard disk, Acer GIO local-bus
controller, Toshiba XM-3401B CD-ROM drive.
Display: Acer America S3/805 GUI video controller with 2MB of VRAM, Acer America
AcerView 76i 17-inch monitor with a 60-Hz refresh rate at 1,280-by-1,024.
Software: DOS 6.2, Microsoft Windows NT.
Acer America Corp., 2641 Orchard Pkwy., San Jose, CA 95134; 800-368-2237, 408-432-6200; fax, 408-922-2953.
Computational ability EXCELLENT
Expandability GOOD
Engineering/scientific/CAD GOOD
Graphics/publishing GOOD
The $8,179 AcerFormula 4400, based on the 150-MHz MIPS R4400 processor, delivers adequate but not star-quality performance when compared with other NT systems in this workstation roundup.
Acer is a company that has been around for a while and is familiar to users of Intel-and non-Intel-based computers. A similar Acer-built product shows up elsewhere in this review cloaked as the NeTpower NeTstation 300, although the latter runs at a higher speed. The AcerFormula is aimed at the high-end technical workstation market.
The AcerFormula came with 32MB of RAM (expandable to 128MB) and a 128K cache. Unfortunately, the cache is fixed at 128K so you can't upgrade to improve performance. The system also had a 1.04GB Fujitsu SCSI-2 drive run off an adapter on the proprietary PICA bus (the adapter also ran most of the I/O ports), a dual-speed Toshiba CD- ROM drive, an S3-based PICA video adapter with 2MB of VRAM, built-in Ethernet, a daughtercard with the four SIMM slots, and a 17-inch monitor.
The unit came in a standard desktop case with room for some expansion, since three drive bays and two ISA slots were open. An interesting design choice was the mouse and keyboard port placement: Both are placed by the left front corner of the case.
Performance is unfortunately the AcerFormula's weak link. It will get the job done, and it did have bright spots on the Khornerstone and single-precision Whetstone tests, but most of its scores were either average or below average. All of the NT-based RISC systems suffered a penalty in the double-precision Whetstone tests because their compilers weren't optimized.
The AcerFormula posted the lowest score on the 16-bit Excel Windows emulation test and also had one of the lowest scores on the Pro Engineer test; the system's scores on the PV-Wave and Picture Publisher tests, however, were not too far off the mean. The lack of a truly strong performance showing on the Picture Publisher test was more likely due to the port of this application on MIPS-based NT systems in general than to a weakness in the system, since all MIPS NT entries suffered on this particular test.
Acer backs its systems with a standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty plus free on-site service for that year. It also has toll- free, 24-hour, 7-day technical support.
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Type
Hardware Review
Evaluation
Company
Acer America Corp.
Product
Acer America AcerFormula 4400 (MIPS-based system)
Topic
Evaluation
Workstations
Record #
15 350 592
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*AcerFormula 4400.
PC Magazine: May 31, 1994
COPYRIGHT Ziff-Davis Publishing Company 1994
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