Specifications

Call of Duty 4 test, which is the fastest of
the three systems reviewed here. What’s
that, you say? You think 35 frames per
second for a 3-year-old game isn’t all
that great? Well, welcome to the world
of all-in-ones. Practically speaking, the
Wind Top feels snappy, and while the
processor speeds allowed us to play Total
War: Shogun 2 in campaign mode, when
the time came to fi ght it out on the game’s
3D battlefi elds, we were disappointed.
The Wind Top comes with two USB
3.0 ports, fi ve USB 2.0 ports, HDMI-in,
S/PIDF-out, a coaxial-in port, and a web-
cam. The inclusion of a stylus surprised
us, but hey, it’s not mandatory and it’s not
hurting anyone, right? MSI’s Wind Touch
OS layer deserves special mention—it pro-
vides a fairly straightforward way to access
media solely through the touch screen.
While not as nice as Sony’s VAIO L
Series, the 23.6-inch screen puts out
pretty decent visual quality. And, as far
as we know, this is the only all-in-one
that allows you to watch 3D Blu-rays
and play 3D games. It even has a built-
in emitter and comes with a pair of
active shutter 3D glasses.
Overall, this is an above-average
showing. And if you want 3D content, this
is the only gig in town.
MSI Wind Top AE2420 3D
$1,800, www.msi.com
HP TOUCHSMART 610
It’s clear that HP sees the value in this cat-
egory. The PC maker’s new TouchSmart is
sleek, polished, and is the fi rst all-in-one
we’ve ever seen to feature a subwoofer-
out jack. HP makes a subtle but valid point
here: The truth about these systems is
that, regardless of where we set them
up—kitchen, living room, garage—we
fi nd ourselves frequently using them as
music stations, so why not aim for higher
audio fi delity? Conveniently, HP has also
integrated Monster’s (and Dr. Dre’s) Beats
environment, allowing the TouchSmart
610 to pump out impressive enough
sound to make people do a double-take.
Beats notwithstanding, HP also packs
some beef into this system, with a 2.93GHz
Core i7-870, a full-size 2GB ATI Radeon HD
5570, 8GB of DDR memory, a 1TB 7,200rpm
drive, a Blu-ray player, Wi-Fi, a TV tuner,
and two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports. As
far as CPUs go, the Core i7-870 is a little
old, but the higher clock enabled it to blaze
through our CPU-intensive tasks, beating
out MSI’s AiW by 20 percent in most tests
and almost 50 percent in our Photoshop
benchmark. It’s not Sandy Bridge, but
it’s speedy. And, given the use of discrete
graphics, Sandy Bridge is not necessary.
Game performance was another story,
however, as MSI’s 5730 Mobility Radeon
part bested the 5570 by a few frames per
second in Call of Duty 4. Again, you’re not
going to wow your friends by turning up the
detail on Shogun 2’s battle scenes, but you
will be able to play through campaign mode
without the CPU’s turns taking days.
We like the 24-inch screen on the
TouchSmart 610. It’s not as nice as
Sony’s, but is still satisfying. We ab-
solutely love the vertical slider on the
back of the system, which allowed us to
easily recline the screen into multiple
positions. It is also wall-mountable. One
other nice touch is the new version of its
TouchSmart OS layer, which optimizes
media chores and other OS functions for
touch. As if to underscore the gaming
potential of the 610 (and possibly the en-
tire all-in-one category?), HP includes a
free touch-enabled copy of the real-time
strategy game Ruse.
This excellent, professionally crafted
system demonstrates that while we’re
not quite in the position of being able to
play power games on all-in-one systems,
we’re getting close.
HP TouchSmart 610
$1,790, www.hp.com
8
VERDICT
83
maximumpc.com
JUL 2011
MAXIMUMPC
Sony VAIO L Series
VPCL214FX/W
MSI Wind Top
AE2420 3D
HP TouchSmart
610
PRICE
$1,400 $1,800 $1,790
CPU
2.1GHz Core i3-2310M 2.8GHz Core i7-860 2.93GHz Core i7-870
GPU
Integrated (Sandy
Bridge)
ATI Radeon
Mobility 5730
ATI Radeon 5570
RAM
2GB 4GB 8GB
HDD
450GB (7,200rpm) 1TB (7,200rpm) 1TB (7,200rpm)
SCREEN
24-inch 23.6-inch 24-inch
SPECIFICATIONS BENCHMARKS
Sony VAIO L
VPCL214FX/W
MSI Wind Top
AE2420 3D
HP Touch-
Smart 610
PROSHOW PRODUCER
(SEC)
1,470 686
567
MAINCONCEPT (SEC)
2,542 1,389
1,109
PHOTOSHOP CS3 (SEC)
166 150
85
PREMIERE PRO CS3
(SEC)
1,380 660
600
CALL OF DUTY 4 (FPS)
6.8
38.0
35.8
Best scores are bolded.
9
VERDICT
HP’s Touch
Smart is fast,
polished, and has
a nice screen.
It’s also the only
system of the
batch that tilts
up and down.