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When we began covering all-in-one PCs, we decided we wouldn’t benchmark them because they’re designed for quiet utility, not drag racing. But the Dell XPS One 24 we reviewed in May proved that an all-in-one could hang with the hot rods, so we decided to make that machine our all-in-one zero-point. We imagine Averatec would prefer we go back to our old ways.

On the outside, the Averatec looks very much like an iMac wrapped in shiny black plastic. Inside you’ll find a mixture of desktop and notebook components that explain why the machine is priced $600 less than Apple’s cheapest 24-inch iMac and a cool grand less than Dell’s 24-inch XPS One. Averatec reached far down Intel’s desktop CPU line to pick a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo E4600. It did the same for graphics, tapping Nvidia’s two-year-old GeForce 8400M GS mobile GPU. This GPU has just 16 shader processors, runs at a mild 400MHz, and has a narrow 64-bit interface to 256MB of memory. It drives the integrated display at its native resolution of 1680×1050, and there’s a DVI port in back if you want to connect a second monitor.

The Averatec All-in-One is a good value if you’re looking for a midsize TV that can handle light productivity apps and access the Internet.

The system has 3GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory, a 500GB desktop hard drive, and an integrated AVerMedia A317 hybrid digital/analog TV tuner card. Audio is handled by Realtek’s ALC888. The chassis has stereo speakers, but there’s a S/PDIF port in the back if you want to connect to an A/V receiver or home-theater-in-a-box system. There’s a gigabit LAN port, but wireless networking is limited to 802.11a/b/g.

As with Dell’s machine, Averatec tucks the power supply inside the chassis, so you don’t have to worry about hiding a power brick as you do with HP’s TouchSmart series. This design decision and the presence of a desktop CPU increases the system’s cooling requirements, which are handled passively with heat pipes and vents and actively with a 7cm chassis fan. We found the Averatec to be slightly louder than HP’s all-but-silent TouchSmart IQ506t, but quieter than Dell’s whiney XPS One.

The wireless keyboard is too mushy for our taste, but it does have one cool feature: You can stash the included remote control inside it. The otherwise unremarkable wireless mouse has an extremely annoying habit of falling asleep after just a few minutes of activity, refusing to come back to life until you jiggle it back and forth for several seconds.

Nobody buys an all-in-one for gaming, so we don’t bother running those benchmarks. We do, however, think it’s perfectly reasonable to expect machines in this class to be competent at photo and video editing. The Averatec turned in respectable performance in Photoshop, but the canyonesque gaps in its other benchmark scores reduce it to the level of a glorified TV. [Via MaximumPC.com]

TriGem Averatec 22-inch All-in-One PC

Pros: LIQUID TELEVISION Cheap; quiet; attractive formfactor.	Cons: LIQUID LYNCH Slow; mushy keyboard; annoying mouse.

Vista 32-Bit Benchmarks*