The Medion Akoya E4217D takes a new Intel Core i5 processor but isn't quite sure what to do with it
The recently reviewed Yoyotech i650 gave us a high-tech glance at the new dual-core Intel Core i5 650 processor. This same chip gets a new airing in this Medion Akoya, albeit in altogether slower circumstances.
For a start, the Medion Akoya E4217D runs at the processor's official speed of 3.2GHz (the Yoyotech used supporting hardware to crank up CPU, overclocking it to 4.0GHz).
The resulting WorldBench score here on the Medion Akoya E4217D of 123 points, then, is very decent - if not a patch on the 144 points notched up by the hot-rodded Yoyotech.
This isn't just down to the default clock speed of the Intel CPU, but perhaps also the 4GB of slightly slower DDR3 memory chips (1333MHz instead of 1600MHz).
The 500GB Seagate Barracuda hard drive is relatively capacious, and a 22-speed GH22NS50 DVD±RW drive from LG takes care of DVD playing and burning.
Many of today's PCs are thoughtfully arranged inside, so the Medion Akoya E4217D's innards came as a disappointment. There's very little room to squeeze your hands into, so replacing components yourself won't be so easy. This is mostly due to a huge plastic cooling system sitting atop the CPU, although the compact case itself is also rather cramped. Two of the four memory slots are free for future upgrades.
The FSP power supply is only specified to 350W operation. This lowly PSU might not give as much scope for faster graphics cards in the future, which may be a shame, since the nVidia GeForce G310 card with its 512MB memory is the weakest point of this PC.
It stumbled to some dreadful figures in our games tests, struggling to get above 10fps in Crysis in the easier of our two modes.
The less demanding FEAR test saw the Medion Akoya E4217D reach the 49fps mark, so gaming isn't entirely out of the question.
The Medion Akoya E4217D does have WiFi wireless support which goes up to 11n. Loaded software is nothing to write home about: CyberLink Power2Go, the anaemic Microsoft Works 9.0, and time-limited trial software sponsored by Microsoft and Bullguard.
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