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The PowerMate P2200M, street-priced at $3,860 ($4,170 with 64MB of RAM), is a fairly good performer, offering networking features corporate buyers will like. The PowerMate line is the first of NEC's lines to adopt MMX. Others will follow: The Ready line of home PCs will soon offer MMX; the PowerPlayer gaming line and the Ready Office PC line for the office/home office will incorporate MMX in a few months. All MMX PCs will offer higher-end surrounding hardware and will ship with MMX software titles.
The Intel motherboard integrates 16-bit Creative Labs sound, which operates in tandem with two NEC speakers. With 512K of pipelined-burst L2 cache, a 3GB 5,400-rpm IBM hard disk, and an ATI Pro Turbo 3D Rage-GT graphics card with 4MB of SGRAM (2MB is standard, and the included option is $75 extra), the system posted mostly average test scores. The exceptions were its below-average Graphics WinMark 97 and CD-ROM WinMark 97 scores. The culprit in the latter case was the unit's 8X CD-ROM drive, one of the few 8X models here (a variable-speed 12X/16X drive will be standard by the time you read this).
On most of our MMX applications tests, the PowerMate stacked up well compared with its peers. But it posted subpar scores on two of our Photoshop tests.
The unit also offers an Iomega Zip drive, an infrared port, two USB ports, DMI support, and Intel's LANDesk Client Manager. The PowerMate is no doubt appropriate for the corporate space.
- Cade Metz
PowerMate P2200M. Street price: $3,860. NEC Computer Systems Division, Mountain View, CA; 800-306-4636, 508-264-4300; faxback, 800-366-0476; www.nec.com.
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