2011-12-07, 21:48
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6883113188
Looks like it beats the hell out of the custom build, value-wise.
Only negative comment in the review is the PS is weak for crossfire
---------------------------------
So i grabbed this when it went down to $385 on the Egg. Little did i know Best Buy would list an identical model for $350, but with sales tax, it would only be $7 less.
First impressions:
Decent sized box, first thing i notice is the LED's on the front have to be taped over or disabled, way too bright.
The system itself seems to run fairly silently. Once it's in the media cabinet, i certainly won't hear anything over my projector anyway.
The only exception is the dvd burner, which sounds like a jet engine. I don't plan on using that much other than loading software, so it's a non-issue
Software:
No OS discs with this one, so i had to do the recover disc thing. Probably made a mistake doing this after windows update, as the recovery disc took 3 DVD's, but who cares, only doing this once. One more DVD for the App/driver backup and i'm done.
Not too much bloatware on this one, other than tool bars in internet explorer, which i don't use past loading firefox anyway.
Haven't started the XBMC load yet, but did load up VLC to try out streaming.
Watched a bit of a Bluray sourced MKV from my ReadyNAS and it played flawlessly.
Also loaded up Netflix webside, and other than some lead buffering to get HD going, this also worked well.
So far so good. I will update this as I load XBMC and get it configured, but for the price, I don't think you will get a more full-featured HTPC.
--
Finally got the system into the media cabinet
Looks like it beats the hell out of the custom build, value-wise.
Only negative comment in the review is the PS is weak for crossfire
---------------------------------
So i grabbed this when it went down to $385 on the Egg. Little did i know Best Buy would list an identical model for $350, but with sales tax, it would only be $7 less.
First impressions:
Decent sized box, first thing i notice is the LED's on the front have to be taped over or disabled, way too bright.
The system itself seems to run fairly silently. Once it's in the media cabinet, i certainly won't hear anything over my projector anyway.
The only exception is the dvd burner, which sounds like a jet engine. I don't plan on using that much other than loading software, so it's a non-issue
Software:
No OS discs with this one, so i had to do the recover disc thing. Probably made a mistake doing this after windows update, as the recovery disc took 3 DVD's, but who cares, only doing this once. One more DVD for the App/driver backup and i'm done.
Not too much bloatware on this one, other than tool bars in internet explorer, which i don't use past loading firefox anyway.
Haven't started the XBMC load yet, but did load up VLC to try out streaming.
Watched a bit of a Bluray sourced MKV from my ReadyNAS and it played flawlessly.
Also loaded up Netflix webside, and other than some lead buffering to get HD going, this also worked well.
So far so good. I will update this as I load XBMC and get it configured, but for the price, I don't think you will get a more full-featured HTPC.
--
Finally got the system into the media cabinet
