Acer Aspire M3985

Acer Aspire M3985 Review

Acer's uninspired Aspire M3985 makes a pragmatic and affordable desktop, but benefits little from an upgrade to the latest Ivy Bridge processors.Desktop manufacturers have been gradually updating their products in wake of Ivy Bridge's release. Intel's new processors have bigger numbers than the old ones, after all. However, because these are desktops and not laptops, designers have no particular reason to heavily update the surrounding chassis.Such is the case with the Acer Aspire M3985. It's instantly recognizable as an Acer computer from the outside. Inside, however, it has an Intel Core i5-3450 processor. This quad-core, mid-range part is smack dab in the middle of Intel's line, and the same can be said of the M3985. North American availability of the Acer M3985 appears limited at this time, but the few online retailers stocking it are listing a price of $699.The third-generation processor is supported by 8GB of DDR3 memory and 1TB of hard disk storage. Discrete graphics were omitted in our review unit, so this desktop has to get by with Intel HD 2500, the least powerful integrated graphics processor (IGP) available on Intel's new parts.