Acer has announced that its "space-saving" Aspire X3 and M3 series desktops are now are now available in the U.S. market, with prices starting at $450. Both are pitched as "great all-around workhorses" featuring small footprints, affordable hardware and a handful of media-friendly characteristics.
The Aspire X3 is a small form-factor desktop combining 4GB of memory, up to 1TB of storage and your choice from a variety of CPUs -- AMD Athlon II, Phenom II, Intel Core i3, or Intel Pentium E6600 are all available. Graphics are handled by an NVidia GeForce 9200 or Intel's integrated GMA HD chipset, depending on configuration, while on the connectivity front you'll get an HDMI output, a PCI Express ×1 and ×16 slot for expansion, and a whopping 11 USB ports.
The Aspire M3 gives you a little more room for future upgrades with a micro tower case. Customers can choose between an AMD Athlon II or AMD Phenom II processor and either ATI HD 5450 or NVIDIA GeForce 9200 graphics. Acer didn't disclose the available memory on the M3 but said the system offers up to a 640GB hard drive, two available PCI Express x1 slots, 10 USB 2.0 ports, 5.1-channel audio support, and bays for an extra optical drive and hard drive.
