Acer Veriton X498G

Acer Veriton X498G

At a mere $699 (as of August 19, 2010), the Acer Veriton X498G is one of the strongest values you'll find in the business desktop category. It doesn't take the raw-performance crown--a title that the $2000 HP Z200 Workstation SFF retains--but it does make an impressive showing, without throttling your expense account. Though the standard business-desktop caveats (namely, limited storage and expandability) are in play, Acer's X498G nevertheless offers a winning combination of features and functionality. Inside the diminutive chassis is a 3.2GHz Core i5-650 processor, as well as 4GB of DDR3 RAM. The X498G also offers 500GB of storage. Although consumer desktops in the mainstream and budget categories provide storage capacities well within the 1TB range, as business machines go 500GB is a fairly generous amount of room. HP's Z200 offers 500GB, too, while the Dell Optiplex 780 USFF is outfitted with a comparatively paltry 250GB hard drive. Keep in mind that a business's storage needs can vary; many rely on networks for housing sensitive data, and as such can afford to work with anemic user terminals.