Westan ArmaPro P4
The Westan ArmaPro was another Intel P4-based machine. It came with a 1.7GHz processor, an Intel D850GB motherboard, 256MB of RDRAM, and a massive 60GB Western Digital hard disk drive. The ArmaPro case houses four 5.25in drive bays and two 3.5in drives. You can also mount two 3.5in internal drive bays (one of these was taken up by the hard disk). There was plenty of room inside the case and all the cables and wiring was tucked neatly out of the way. We found two fans inside the case. One blows heat out of the case and the other one is used to bring in cool air from outside. Westan also seems to have run into the problem of only being able to get their hands on 64MB RDRAM modules. They filled all the available slots with 64MB modules, limiting the expandability of this machine by doing so.
The Westan features a Sparkle SP6900 graphics accelerator card with S-video and DVI. This card is based around the nVidia Geforce 2 Ultra processor. The Sparkle performed a little better in all the graphics benchmarks than the other Geforce 2 Ultra cards. In Content Creation Winstone and in Business Winstone it managed to score slightly better than most, and we think it's a Geforce 3 away from being one of the fastest PCs.
We didn't have too many problems burning a CD and playing a DVD movie at the same time. There was one small hiccup at the start of the burn process--a small glitch in sound and video right at the start of the burn process, but that was all. We were successfully able to close the disk session without affecting any of the movie. Like Pioneer Computers, Westan also shipped their PC with a Mitsubishi CD-RW drive--not one of the fastest drives around.
The Creative Sound Blaster card was matched with a pair of OZ Rock-2188 speakers. This combination did not prove to be a good one. The speakers did not offer clear sound and the bass was muddy, to say the least. When we turned the volume right up, the sound was even more distorted though the speakers were quite loud.
The monitor supplied was a Samsung Syncmaster 753DF CRT. It's a good monitor and it does a good job but it's outclassed by some of the other displays like the Dell, Mitsubishi and Philips. The Westan ArmaPro also shipped with a cute external Mitsubishi 56K modem, which is smaller than the size of most cigarette boxes. There was not much included in the way of software. We only received Nero Burning Software and driver CDs and not even a blank CD or CD-RW disc.
Westan ArmaPro P4
Company: Westan
Ph: 03 9543 7733
Price: AU$4,099
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