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Complete listing of June 1996 reviews
By Jim Forbes
Packard Bell, long a SOHO favorite, wants to put some oomph in your office with its 166MHz Pentium Platinum Pro.
The basic configuration includes a generous 24MB of RAM, a Conner 2.0-gigabyte hard disk, an NEC 6X CD-ROM drive, motherboard-based Cirrus GL 5440 video with 1MB of RAM, and an Aztech card that combines a data/fax/voice 28.8Kbps modem and 16-bit, SRS sound. A pair of speakers is also provided.
There's no monitor in the standard setup, but a 15-inch monitor came with the review unit. This monitor adds about $350 to the system's price.
The system's mini-tower case resembles an art deco skyscraper. A vertical riser card provides three PCI and two ISA slots. The Aztech card uses one of the ISA slots.
The impressive software bundle consists of over 40 titles. In addition to Windows 95, the titles include Quicken, Microsoft Money, Microsoft Works 95, Encarta and a suite of communications apps.
The NEC 6X CD-ROM drive offers a fast seek time and throughput of about 800KB per second, and the audio system provides good sound. The system's performance test results ranked it just below average for 166MHz Pentium PCs. Its processor clocked 297.67MIPS, and uncached throughput for the hard disk was 2.73MB per second. The video system fared poorly with a rate of 6.97Mpixels per second. The system executed our Excel and Word macros in 19 and 30 seconds, respectively.
The Platinum Pro provides steady if not sizzling performance and a solid set of multimedia components.
Info File
Packard Bell Platinum Pro
Price: $2,799
Pros: CD-ROM drive; software
Cons: Speakers; performance
Packard Bell Electronics
800-733-5858, 916-388-0101
WinMag Box Score: 3.5
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