Acer Aspire TC-1760-UA92 Review | PCMag

Acer’s Aspire TC (model TC-1760-UA92, $619.99 tested) has everything you want in a budget desktop. Its 12th Gen Intel Core i5 processor handles homework and video streaming with ease, it has a 512 GB solid state drive instead of a meager 256 GB unit, and it supports Wi-Fi 6 for fast downloads. Its integrated graphics don’t allow for much gaming, but unlike the HP Pavilion desktop, the Aspire has his two HDMI video outputs for modern dual-monitor setups. The tower also outperforms Dell Inspiron desktops, which can’t be upgraded and tend to be more expensive. doing.

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Outside: Low budget but classy

Aspire TC shows that buying from the budget aisle doesn’t have to look that way. The faux brushed aluminum finish and silver stripes on the front panel give it a more sophisticated look than the relatively drab Inspiron desktop. The dimensions of the micro tower are 13.4 x 6.4 x 13.8 inches (HWD), not too big for your needs. The front panel is plastic and the rest is thin steel. The left panel is perforated for ventilation.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Front panel connections include two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (one type A, one type C), an audio combo jack, and a microphone jack. There’s no media card reader, but a slot just above the unit’s USB-C port suggests it is present in some Aspire TC configurations. The inclusion of a laptop-style tray-loading DVD burner is a surprise.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

On the back, you’ll find two HDMI 2.0b video outputs, plus five USB-A ports (another 3.2 Gen 1 and four Retro 2.0), a Gigabit Ethernet jack, and three audio jacks (mic, line-in, and line-in). there is. -out). Having two modern video outputs is a definite plus for budget desktops, meaning you can enjoy dual monitor setups. Security-conscious users will also love the Kensington-style cable lock notch.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

To open the Aspire TC, you’ll need to remove the left panel. This is easily done by removing two Phillips screws. It doesn’t look like much of a spartan interior with bare metal and multi-colored wires, but you can’t tell when the side panels are in place. The motherboard (approximately 11 x 7.75 inches) has two DDR4-3200 memory slots, an M.2 2280 slot for solid state drives, and an M.2 2230 slot for wireless cards. The Intel AX201 card installed in the latter supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, making it useful for budget machines. You can always upgrade to cards that support the new 6E standard.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

The front support cage has mounting holes for two 3.5 inch drives. One of them comes with screws and a silicone mount, and Acer’s box also includes his SATA cable. Dell Inspiron desktops do not match this storage scalability.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Motherboard expansion slots include one PCI Express x16 and one PCI Express x1. However, the lack of a GPU power connector on the 300-watt power supply limits the choice of discrete graphics cards to those that can only draw power from the slot. (Some variants of the Intel Arc A380 may work, but probably not the version reviewed.) This tower does not have active cooling intake or exhaust fans, so you can Adding it may not be the best bet.

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Core i5 Power: Testing the Aspire TC-1760-UA92

The Aspire TC-1760-UA92 shown here costs $619.99, but was only $559 in reviews on Amazon. With a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5-12400 processor (6 cores, 12 threads), 12 GB DDR4 RAM, 512 GB solid state drive, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2, Windows 11 Home and more, it is fully equipped for everyday use. It’s in order. The preloaded apps are minimal. Norton’s Security Trial is the most notable, but it only takes a few minutes to uninstall. A basic USB keyboard and mouse are also included. Warranty is 1 year.

Dell’s Inspiron Desktop (model 3910, an updated version of the Inspiron 3891) was $639 at the time of this writing, but could easily drop in price during sales and discounts. We couldn’t find an HP Pavilion desktop with exactly the same loadout as Acer, but the $749 model TP01-3025t comes close, with just 8GB of RAM and offering a 512GB SSD plus a 1TB hard drive To do. As mentioned, the Aspire’s storage is upgradable, and you can purchase and install a 1TB 3.5-inch hard drive for under $50 (or just plug in an external hard drive).

Benchmark charts compare Acer to Dell Inspiron Desktop (3910) and HP Pavilion Desktop TP01-2060. Dell has a bare-bones quad-core Intel Core i3-12100 chip, while the Pavilion has a mighty 8-core AMD Ryzen 7. The -class Dell OptiPlex 3090 small form factor desktop and the even smaller Asus ExpertCenter PN52 mini PC are built around the older Core i5 and 8-core Ryzen 7 laptop CPUs respectively.

Productivity and content creation tests

The first test is UL’s PCMark 10. It simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes primary drive storage his subtests.

Three more benchmarks focus on the CPU using all available cores and threads to assess a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses the company’s Cinema 4D engine to render complex scenes, and Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, he uses the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert his 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (the shorter the better).

The ultimate productivity test is PugetBench for Photoshop from Puget Systems.(opens in new window), using Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s renowned image editor to evaluate PC performance for content creation and multimedia applications. This is an auto-enhancement that performs a variety of common GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks, from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving images to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

Aspire finishes in the middle of the PCMark 10 pack, but its 5,047-point score is well above the 4,000 points we consider desirable for an everyday productivity app like Microsoft 365. Still much faster than a hard drive. Acer hit back in CPU testing, and its 12th Gen Core i5 is he one of the leaders in this group on Cinebench and Geekbench.

The only downside to this performance is noise. His CPU fan in the Aspire is definitely louder at top speed, more than you can hear in your entire living room. However, it only reached peak volume during the CPU test, and I could only hear quiet sounds in normal apps.

graphic test

Test home PC graphics with four game simulations or synthetic 3D tests. These include two DirectX 12 exercises from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more conservative and suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding and suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). suitable for). The other two, rendered offscreen, use the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5 to evaluate OpenGL performance.

The Aspire’s Intel UHD 730 integrated graphics generally lag behind the AMD Radeon integrated graphics in HP and Asus desktops, but neither of these PCs will satisfy gamers. They might handle a minimally demanding esports title or two, but if gaming is your priority, you should buy a system with a dedicated graphics card.

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Verdict: It’s an aspirational budget purchase

Acer’s Aspire TC-1760-UA92 offers great value in a microtower format. It features a vivacious Core i5 processor and a massive 512GB solid-state drive, plus Wi-Fi 6 and HDMI ports for dual-monitor setups. The company also offers mounting hardware for additional internal storage drives.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

The only thing you can’t do with this Aspire is play the latest games, and that’s a given in this category. If you’re on a tight budget and want a home PC that won’t get in the way of your daily use, the Aspire TC is our top choice, earning our Editors’ Choice award for budget desktops.