One step forward, two steps back
To earn our respect, a computer can make very few compromises. The PowerPlayer 2020 was such a system, earning boot’s first Kick-Ass award for a desktop system. It managed this by pushing the limits of how much good stuff can be crammed into a single box.
Six months later, the new PowerPlayer 3020 delivers MMX and other improvements over its predecessor, but it takes too many steps backward. It’s still a great system, and at a much lower price than the 2020, but it’s lost its edge.
In some cases the trade-offs are even—the nifty 6×4 CD-ROM changer was replaced with the fastest 16x drive we’ve seen. But NEC deleted the IrDA port and matching wireless mouse, and they’ve chopped the software bundle in half. Only Pod effectively shows off the power of the 3Dfx Voodoo accelerator, and the only other really compelling title in this package is You Don’t Know Jack.
Still, this PowerPlayer has better sound at the expense of one fewer free slots. As for swapping out the Gravis GrIP game pads for Microsoft Sidewinders… that’s just a matter of taste.
The PowerPlayer 3020’s performance is a mixed bag. The I/O speed was off our charts, with that blazing fast CD-ROM and a hard drive that posted more than 4MB/sec throughput. But overall benchmarks were hampered by only 256K of cache (not expandable), resulting in average overall performance. The on-motherboard ATI Rage II is no speed-demon, but it’s fast enough for most 2D work and it’s scaled video is unbeatable for watching MPEG movies. ATI’s AMC connector is provided on the motherboard for adding a TV tuner or other goodies, and the onboard graphics memory is upgradable to 4MB for better performance and higher resolutions.
The PowerPlayer 3020 may not be the ultimate PC by today’s standards, but there’s still a lot to be said for a big box packed with goodies. Just think of this machine as the ultimate console game system, at about 15 times the cost.
— Chris Dunphy
