Everex Impact GC3052 Budget Desktop PC

The Bottom Line
The one thing really going for the Everex Impact GC3502 is its very low price. This is probably one of the least expensive desktop PCs available on the market. The addage of you get what you pay for is very evident here. The system has limited performance, storage and operating system. The Impact GC3502 should only be consider for those needing limited word porcessing or Internet access only in a PC.

Pros

* Very Inexpensive
* Low Power Consumption

Cons

* Extremely Limited Performance
* Small Hard Drive
* Limited Home Basic Operating System

Description

* VIA C7-D (1.5GHz) Processor
* 512MB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
* 80GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
* 16x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
* VIA Chrome9 HC Integrated Graphics
* AC'97 Audio and Stereo Speakers
* v.92 56Kbps Modem, 10/100 Ethernet
* Six USB 2.0
* Vista Home Basic, OpenOffice 2.2, Cyberlink DVD, Norton Internet Security

Guide Review - Everex Impact GC3052 Budget Desktop PC

The Everex Impact GC3502 is clearly one of the least expensive desktop available on the market today. And that's about the most that can be said for this system. In order to offer it for such a low price, lots of features and performance were removed.

Rather than an Intel or AMD processor, the Impact GC3502 relies on a little known VIA C7-D processor. Now, this is a very low power consumption processor that helps reduce energy consumption, but it also lags significantly behind even the AMD Sempron and Intel Celeron processors for performance. Add to this that it only comes with 512MB of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory, and this system meets the bare minimum specs to run the Vista operating system.

Storage is drastically smaller than what one would find in a consumer desktop system. While most have roughly 300GB in storage space, the Impact GC3502 uses a very small 80GB drive. This will limit the amount of programs and digital media that can be stored on it. Thankfully, it does come with a dual layer DVD burner.

Graphics are pretty much passable for Windows and that's about it. The VIA Chrome9 HC integrated processor will eat up some of the precious system memory and has very limited features for 3D. Don't expect to replace this with a expansion card though as it isn't really possible.

Software on the system is a mixed bag. Everex has included the full OpenOffice 2.2 suite for word processing, spreadsheet and other productivity needs. Of course, this is a free application that anyone can readily download. On the other hand, it comes with the Basic version of Vista that limits what applications can be run.

The end result is a PC that is more functional as a basic word processor and Internet browser than a full fledged desktop PC.