Acer X3400 review

When Acer first announced their line of X3400 small form factor PCs, I don’t think they had me in mind.  They were clearly targeting people with limited space, and in need of somewhat limited computing power.  The initial press release announcing them was clearly shooting for dorm rooms and light-medium use, and not much more.  However, when I took another look at the basic specs, I have to admit I was kind of curious.  Given the small form factor, but room for expandability, could this be a good balance for a home theatre PC?  When the base model X3400-E2202 arrived at the RGB Filter studios, it was time to put it through its paces.

Out of the box

The X3400 is a fairly clean looking machine, with a glossy front mixed with a faux carbon fibre finish on the two larger panels.  The rest of the case is matte black, with a single huge cooling fan on one side.  The right (or top) panel hides the DVD tray, and there are USB and multi-card reader.  There’s a flip out panel on the front that hides a multi-card read, 5 USB 2.0 ports as well as mic and headphone jacks.

On the back you’ll find four more USB 2.0 ports, PS2 style mouse and keyboard connectors, gigabit Ethernet, and 3.5mm jacks supporting 5.1 output as well as another mic input.  For video, there’s both VGA and HDMI (with HDCP).   It also ships with a USB keyboard and mouse, which makes the PS/2 connectors a curiosity, especially given the number of USB ports available.  It’s all pretty standard stuff, but what makes it most interesting is the inside.

The Guts

• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
• RAM: 4 GB 1333MHz
• CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 2.7 GHz
• Video: NVidia GeForce9200M

Given the above specs, it’s no surprise the X3400 has more than enough power to keep most general computer users happy.  In many ways it actually resembles, and is priced, along similar lines as many major manufacturers office workstation class machines.  It’s not going to chew through huge Photoshop renders, and it’s certainly no gaming powerhouse, but outside of higher end games, it manages to do well enough.  To give you an idea, at 1280×720 resolution, Left 4 Dead 2 barely managed 20 FPS, but lower end games were definitely playable.  Of course, most gamers wouldn’t be looking at something like the X3400 in the first place.

That’s where the HTPC equation comes in.

To build a proper HTPC in the past would require a custom case, and lot of effort to reduce noise, making them an expensive proposition.  More recently, a number of Atom based nettops have appeared, and as HTPCs they hold their own, even when playing back 1080p content.  Out of the box you get a sub $400 computer, often with Windows 7 already installed, that can be plugged right into the TV.  Of course, to do any recording of cable or satellite signals requires an external tuner, which makes things a little more clunky, but these are solid little machines.  I wouldn’t call them HTPCs though, more like Media PCs.  At least that’s what I’ve named mine.

What the X3400 offers is something in between.  It’s about the size of a traditional HTPC, and almost as quiet, with its large cooling fan.  The form factor is small enough that it will fit in most modern home entertainment units lying on its side, and the front face is about the size of a VCR – you know, that thing that’s probably eating up space in your entertainment unit right now.

Also making it superior to an Atom/ION class nettop is expandability.  The Acer X3400 has 2 half height PCI slots inside (1 PCI Express x1 and 1 PCI Express x16), which give you the option for further expansion, depending on your tastes.  Although more than capable of handling HD content, if you want to add PC gaming to your HDTV, it would be relatively easy to add a more powerful half height graphics card to the system.

Alternately, if you’re less concerned about gaming, are aiming for a dedicated HTPC, you can put a XONAR audio card in there.  Getting into the details of getting true 7.1 sound is beyond the scope of this article (more suitable for avsforum.com I thing), but the system is certainly capable of it.  Even after bumping the audio up with a XONAR or other dedicated sound card, there’s still room to add an internal TV tuner, be it CableCARD for those who have access to it, or another internal solution.

In my time testing the X3400, it never even touched a monitor, instead sitting beside my TV (I was too lazy to disconnect my VCR).  Although I’ve been happy with my cheaper nettop solution (an ASRock ION 330) for my digital media solution, I have to say that the with the added horsepower of the X3400, initial menus in Windows Media Center came up a little smoother, and it performed as well as some dedicated HTPC setups that I’ve had a chance to play around with in the past.

In the end

The X3400 will do perfectly fine in smaller spaces as a home office PC, and at about $450 (CDN), it’s certainly a good deal.   I’ll make no bones about the fact that I think dedicated set top boxes are pointless solutions, be it a game console Asus O!Play Air, the Apple TV or even Google’s yet to be released devices under the Google TV name.  There’s nothing that compares to a proper HTPC with Windows Media Center, especially when coupled with the Boxee software, which can be launched from the WMC interface.  After an initial codec pack install, you’re bases are covered and you’re not restricted to a single vendors media service, and for recording TV, there’s a reason why Windows Media Center’s Electronic Programming Guide is rated so highly.  It’s just better than everything else.  Even TiVO.  Out of the box, the X3400 gives you everything you need, unless you want  7.1 sound and a TV tuner, both of which are easily added.

There’s a part of me that was hoping I’d get the time to try it out with an internal tuner, but time was up.  At this point, I’m considering moving my ASRock ION 330 to the bedroom, and getting an X3400 for the main TV.

Alex’s Thoughts

After Doug spent some quality time with the AX3400 I also got to spend a few days with it. Like Doug my primary use for a PC like this would be as a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) – and this is something that the 3400’s excels in, with a few minor quibbles.

Physically the AX3400 is an unassuming clean design that will integrate into anyone home theatre equipment stack well, but I did find it a little too long to fit into by Ikea TV stand.  It hung out over the edge a couple of inches, which was ok for a few days of testing, but not for a permanent set up. For this I would want to figure out a way to get it flush with the front of my unit, which may have involved some furniture mods! You also need to keep in mind that while is a small lower powered desktop, it is not a dedicated media player with a Atom CPU and passive cooling . While the desktop is very quiet it is not silent, and you need to ensure that there is adequate ventilation around the case.

Once I got it set up and connected (wired) to my network I tried to stream some 720P and 1080P .mkv movies over to it, and it performed well. There were a couple hitches when watching the 1080P movie, but this was more likely a network performance rather than an inability of the AX3400 to play 1080P content. The 720P content streamed perfectly and looked great on my TV. If you combine the AX3400 with a media centre compatible remote and compact wireless keyboard you’d have a great set up.

I also wanted to see how it would perform as a TV connected gaming PC, so I went a little nuts and decided to push it to the max – I installed Crysis Warhead on it! Suffice to say while it actually ran it wasn’t exactly playable, even at the lowest settings it only got an average of 13 FPS. However older titles like Portal and Left 4 Dead are playable, albeit with the detail settings set way down. Thankfully the AX3400 does have an open PCI-E 16x slot which will allow you to upgrade the graphics card to something with more oomph, such as a Asus low-profile ATI Radeon HD 5550 for around $100.

However if you do upgrade the graphics card you won’t be able to add an internal TV tuner if you want to use it as a full HTPC – luckily there are some good external USB TV Tuners available too – like a Hauppauge WINTV-HVR-950Q.

Overall the AX3400 is a great little PC for a very reasonable amount of money, and like Doug says is a great option for a HTPC, much better than any dedicated set-top box, and with a couple of choice upgrades I can also serve as a secondary gaming PC for when you want to enjoy Starcraft II relaxing on the couch.