The most unique system in this roundup is certainly the Micron Millennia MAX 933 (US$3,549 direct). Unlike the Dell and Quantex entriesââ,¬"which are almost like identical twinsââ,¬"Micron uses a different chip set and a leading-edge disk subsystem to differentiate its product. The unit's price is the highest here, but for the right customer, the Millennia MAX 933 may just be worth the extra money.
The Millennia MAX 933 uses an Ultra ATA/66+ diskââ,¬"in this case, a 30GB IBM Deskstar 75GXP. The drive uses a glass substrate for disk platters rather than an aluminum magnesium alloy, which results in more rigid platters with smoother surfaces. These features improve reliability, data integrity, and the ability to handle physical shock. The drive also has a higher areal density, which boosts capacity and performance, since more data can be read or written with each rotation.
On our standard benchmark tests, which have much CPU/memory and random disk activity, the benefits of this subsystem were not readily apparent. In fact, the Millennia MAX 933 posted the lowest scores here on our Winstone, Content Creation Winstone, and Disk WinMark tests.
To stress the unit's disk subsystem even more, we ran it through a series of low-level disk-inspection tests. On our WinBench Disk Transfer Rate test, the Micron was 22 percent faster than the Dell Dimension on outer disk tracks. So, if you're frequently opening and saving very large files in a program such as Photoshop, this system could save you a good chunk of time throughout the workday.
Micron's use of the Via Apollo Pro 133A chip set in this PC may also benefit certain power users who need lots of system memory to run their applications. The machine has three SDRAM slots, and can take up to 768MB of RAM. By comparison, both the Dell and the Quantex units are limited to 512MB of memory, because the Intel 820 chip set currently only supports two RIMM slots.
Other than the components mentioned above, the Millennia MAX 933 was configured very much like the Dell and Quantex PCs. Inside the unit was a DVD-ROM drive, a CD-RW drive, a Fast Ethernet card, and a graphics board featuring nVidia's GeForce2 GTS engine. Servicing the machine should be an easy affair, thanks to toolless entry and screwless PCI slots; adding components could be a hassle, however, given that the machine, as configured for our testing, had no free IRQs.
Micron finishes off this package with Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 4, Microsoft Office 2000 Small Business Edition, and Norton AntiVirus 2000. For disk and memory-intensive applications, the Micron Millennia MAX 933 may be worth the extra money; but for general-purpose computing, the system is a bit high priced and under-featured, particularly sitting next to the other systems here.
Product:Ã,Ã, Micron Millennia MAX 933
Rating:Ã,Ã, 4 Star
Price:Ã,Ã, US$3,549
Configuration Tested:Ã,Ã, 933-MHz Pentium III, 128MB SDRAM, 30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA-307030 hard drive, VisionTek GeForce2 GTS graphics board with 32MB DDR SDRAM, 12X DVD-ROM, 32X/8X/4X CD-RW, 19-inch Micron Trinitron monitor, and Altec Lansing ATP3W speaker system
Company:Ã,Ã, Micron Electronics www.micronpc.com
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