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Sony VAIO VGC-RB50 Intel Pentium 4 640 3.2GHz Desktop Computer

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

This Sony computer is designed for use as a media center computer. With minimalist styling, it manages to fit fairly well into you living room, but not nearly as well as some of the newer Sony offerings that have home entertainment center styling, rather than just a good looking computer case.

For a fraction under $900, does this system compare well against newer models offering a little more future proofness and power?

Let’s take a look at the specifications. The Intel Pentium 4 640 3.2GHz processor is from the older 600 series of processors from Intel. They perform fine, but were known for producing a lot of heat, and using a lot of power. The inclusion of a DVD burner and a large 250GB hard drive are fairly run of the mill for a media center computer, computers which are usually designed for home entertainment.

Integrated audio and graphics do not lend themselves to high quality systems, although they have gotten better in recent years, the best is still found in component parts. A standard affair when it comes to networking, all which are possible without upgrades.

The biggest gripe I have is the missing remote control. These are a fairly standard accessory on Sony computers and make a whole lot of sense for entertainment centers, nobody wants to get up and use a mouse for the simple of functions on the computer, especially playback of videos and other media.

So overall, I don’t think that this computer is really worth it. I would put the money into a more up to date version which has more features included. It’s not a bad system, and at the time was probably good, but not good enough anymore.

Alienware Aurora 7500 Computer System

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, News | No Comments

Building a custom computer gives you a feeling of control over what you are getting from your computer. Although there is extra effort required in choosing parts, there is really not too much to consider, and even a small amount of research into what goes into your computer will reap major benefits over choosing a pre-assembled computer.

The major drawback of pre-assembled computers are that when you have no choice over the parts, the parts that are chosen are often very cheap, and chosen to keep the price of the computer very competitive rather than getting the best balance.

The knowledge needed to find the right parts is something which many don’t have, and often people just don’t want to spend that time. To fill the need for high end systems, companies like Alienware have stepped in to offer the support and backup that the big companies give, but offering a better choice of components.

Basic specs include an AMD dual-core or FX processor, an Nvidia GeForce 7900GT graphics card, upwards of 1GB or memory, Raptor hard drives and other high-end parts. SLI for the graphics is also offered.

The system is extremely well put together, with a lot of care going into creating a very clean interior, with all the cables being tucked away. This makes it look very good, but makes it that much harder when you need to change things, keeping things all in the right order might become a little bit harder.

The USB ports and the other ports are easily located at the front of the case and there are a whole lot at the back.

Overall this computer is a very powerful system, although it may be possible to put something together that is more suited to your needs, if you just need a very powerful computer, with good looks, and don’t care much for building one by yourself, then this may just be your best bet.

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Systemax Nighthawk Intel Pentium Extreme Based Nvidia SLI Gaming Computer

Monday, May 22nd, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

Of all the Systemax reviews I’ve done, this one is certainly the most expensive systemax computer I have seen. With a top of the line set of specifications, it will be enough for the most demanding of gamers, and the range of options will allow you to get just what you need.

As with many of the Systemax computers you get a range of options for a lot of the computer. In this case the base computer comes with an Intel Pentium Extreme Edition processor. This is a hefty processor, mostly because of it’s pricetag, which is over $1000 by itself. You do however get the fastest Intel processor available, albeit still a single-core processor.

Amongst the other parts in this Systemax computer you find appropriate choices for a high-speed computer.

It comes standard with 1GB of memory, which can be upgraded to 2GB, which I highly recommend. 2 BFG 7800GTX OC 256MB PCIe video cards are the standard fare in this system, but if you are really paying this much, dish out the extra $100 for 2 BFG 7900GTX OC 512MB video cards and reap the extra performance that those give.

Two Western Digital 74GB Raptor drives in a RAID 0 are an excellent choice in terms of performance. By themselves, these drives give the highest performance available in the desktop computer market. The RAID configuration pushes this even further and gives exceptionally fast performance. The RAID 0 does make it more vulnerable to drives failure, so the extra drive for storing your data is recommended to keep your data safe and provide a lot of extra capacity.

A DVD burner comes standard, but the second drive can just be a DVD-ROM, which I think is enough, or do without it altogether, unless you do a lot of disc to disc copying.

Rounding it out by adding a 19inch flat screen monitor brings the whole package to around $4000. Now, although I would personally choose all the parts of the computer seperately if I was spending this much money, the package here has been fairly well thought out and offers decent parts which are pretty much guaranteed to blow away anything else out there.

Sony VGX-XL1 Intel Pentium D 820 2.8GHz Media Center

Thursday, May 18th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

Now this is what I’m talking about. Sony computers have finally got it right in making a great media center computer. Without any other considerations, the look alone put it way ahead of many of their competitors in terms of style and design.

As the first computers started getting the media center treatment a few years ago, the computer case itself was always an eyesore. Computer cases can be pretty bland and were often hidden from view when put together with a home entertainment system. Home theater equipment has sleek smooth designs, with the components being slim and well styled to fit in a living room. This has always been true of their design.

The Sony VGX-XL1 takes this to heart and is a system with the looks to sit beside the most elegant of equipment. Thankfully their has been no need to downgrade the equipment in order to meet their styling goals.

The computer itself still maintains the functionality of an everyday computer. It has all the standard things inside to allow it to perform usual functions. It is not designed to be doubled as a desktop computer and is really dedicated to things going on in the living room.

The smaller of the two enclosures is the computer part itself. Bundled software allows easy management of the media on the computer and most other functions on offer.

The larger box is a massive DVD storage center, capable of housing 200 DVDs. These are manageable from the same software that is included. You just put the discs into the big box and thats it, they are then all accessible by remote control.

The specifications of the computer are fine and will give enough for the uses it is intended for.

The high price tag does put it out of the range of many people. Simple designs lead to lower costs, which is often a priority for many people. But in the end, the styling and ease of use are the best features, putting media center PCs comfortably in the home entertainment system without sticking out like a sore thumb.

Sony VAIO RB60G Pentium D 920 2.8GHz Desktop Computer

Monday, May 15th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

With a price just over a thousand dollars and a host of high-end features, this Sony computer will do nicely for a home-entertainment system, and give enough features do well as a stand-alone desktop computer as well.

It comes with the new Pentium D 920 dual-core processor. It’s not the newest of the processors on the market, but it’s pretty new, and will provide enough processing power for anything you care to throw at it. The 900 series are the next generation in dual-core processors from Intel, but do not offer substantial gains over the 800 series. They do however, come at only a small price premium and consume less power.

The rest of the features are suitable for a computer at this level. The gigabyte of RAM is about what is expected and will keep it performing well, and allow use of both memory intensive programs and extensive multi-tasking.

For storage, the SATA hard drive offers enough space at 250GB. The inclusion of SATA also means that when upgrading you will have more choice open to you, to allow you to get either a much faster or bigger hard drive.

For the features on the outside, there are firewire, USB and card reader slots at the front, behind a little cover. At the back of the computer you will see a further firewire port, 4 USB ports, the audio ports, as well as slots for video cables and a modem port.

The included remote control allows you to control features of the audio/visual software just by using th remote control. This really boosts this system as a media center because not many people want to get up and use a mouse when sitting in the living room.

A built-in graphics solution will fair well with gaming, but that is not the intention of this computer. For a media center it gives everything you could really want. It lacks the sleek design of many of the very new media systems, but it’s price does save it a bit, allowing that media center experience, without breaking the bank.

Systemax Dual-Core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Desktop Computer

Friday, May 5th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

This is a standard systemax computer. Unlike many of the other models in the Systemax range, this one cannot be customized as comes as-is.

With a good looking case, it gives a good first impression. That’s good, because at around $1400 it’s got to have something to set it apart from other very cool looking cases for this level of computers.

There is a full compliment of expansion ports at both the front and back of the computer. Up front, there is a flash card reader to make easy work of getting your digital pictures and othe data onto and off the desktop computer. There are also firewire, 2 USB, microphone and a audio out spot . Both a DVD burner and DVD/CDRW are situated at the top. At the back are 4 USB, 3 firewire, modem, audio, 2 USB and digital out, as well as the obligatory for mouse, keyboard and monitor. The ATI Radeon X1600 video card gives old-style and DVI outputs.

The AMD Athlon X2 4400+ is not a low-priced model. You always pay a premium for the faster or fastest in the range and this is no exception. It is really fast and will meet the needs of everyone including those that are into gaming.

There is a gigabyte of memory, which is great, allowing enough to run any application. Two 300GB hard drives supply the storage needs of this computer. The best thing about this is that you would be able to set them up how you like. The K8N Neo4-F motherboard wil allow you to setup RAID 0, 1, 0+1 or JBOD for your preference.

Sytemax computers are well put together and have a bit of thought put into the different parts that are in there. Of course, there is still the need to get the best price possible, like the motherboard, which although quite good, is one of the cheapest with the Nforce 4 chipset.

If I had this much money to dish out, I would get a less powerful processor and save heaps of money for the other peripherals like the monitor.

Systemax Warhawk AMD Athlon 64 Based Nvidia SLI ready Gaming Computer

Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | 2 Comments

Systemax computers are known more for their value for money than extreme computing power and gaming performance. Well, it only takes time before the two come together. The Warhawk is a Systemax computer based on the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor that’s designed for gaming. It comes up well against most games and is good value for money for those looking for a little kick from a pretty standard computer.

The Warhawk itself is just one of the standard setups of the Systemax computer gaming range. Everything is customizable and you can chop and choose the parts as you wish. This gives you the ability to up those parts that are more important to you and to downgrade those ones that you would rather upgrade later.

The 3500+ processor will do for most people’s systems, and for my liking I would go for this one. You need to add about $150 dollars to get the slowest dual core AMD X2 or a 3800+ version. The FX-60 chip will add $1000 dollars to the price.

The video card will do the trick, but if you do intend to do some serious gaming I would suggest upgrading to the 7900GT graphics card. Not only will it increase the performance quite a lot, but you can also upgrade that to an SLI setup in the future if needed. Doubling up of the standard card will limit future upgrades as you would have to replace both cards.

Select any of the Corsair memory options to get the most from your system. The most simple is very standard Corsair memory, but for only $5 more it provides some peace of mind that your system is good to go. 1GB or memory should be enough for anyone’s needs.

For data storage, single, RAID0 and RAID3 options are available. I tend to stay away from RAID0, which stripes information over 2 disks. When one disk fails, data is lost. The bonus is that it is very quick as it can write or read from either disk, whichever is closer to the information at the time. RAID3 provides parity and so the failure of anyone of the 3 drives can be tolerated, but there is the overhead of the parity writes. RAID0 is the faster choice, but less fault tolerant.

The rest of the system offers all sorts of extras that you can opt to upgrade, or in many instances, choose to leave out. Overall, it’s a nice looking sytem and is an easy way for you to get a fast gaming system without having to search around for all the different parts yourself.

Sony VAIO VGC-RB53 Intel Pentium 4 630 3GHz Desktop Computer

Monday, May 1st, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

Sony VAIO computers offer a fully integrated desktop for those who want everything pre-packaged and ready to go. Although better known for the VAIO range of laptop computers, these desktop models will give you most of what you need for day-to-day operations, with the security of a big brand company behind you.

Although cheap sony computers are not that easy to come by, this one does come in as one of the cheaper sony computers I have found. Even though its range of parts are not the most cutting edge, the advantage is the savings in the initial purchase.

The Intel Pentium 4 630 3GHz processor gives enough processing power for modern applications. Although dual-core technology is taking strides into the desktop market, there are still many applications that do not need all that extra.

Designed with entertainment in mind, the Sony VAIO desktop computer comes ready for storage of DVD media, and a DVD burner for making your own. The 200GB hard drive provides enough storage space for many hours of video, and the SATA interface ensures that upgrading to bigger faster hard drives will be very easy.

The 512MB or memory should do for most applications, including Microsoft Office and various other office related software, however 1GB might be more in order if you intend running video software.

Amongst the extras, there are 4 USB ports, which gives a little more flexibility if you have lots of peripheral components on your computer. There are the standard mouse and keyboard slots as well as networking (LAN), audio, VGA and parallel ports. One extra, obviously aimed at those interested in video editing, is the firewire port. This extra is not very common on mid-range computers, so this is a a very pleasing extra. There is one at the back of the case and another at the front.

There is a DVD burner and Flash card reader accessible behind panels at the front of the case. The flash card reader also has 2 USB ports and a firewire port at the right side.

For the price, this computer is a good buy. It offers pretty much all you need for a first video editing computer for making home videos and such projects. There is room for expansion and sits in nicely under $1000 with a monitor.

Sony VAIO VGC-RB54G Pentium D 820 2.8GHz

Thursday, April 27th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

Coming in at a reasonable price, this sony vaio computer comes into a range closer to that of what I would like from a home entertainment system PC.

With the usual array of parts, like DVD burner, DVD-ROM, flash card reader, USB, and remote control, what makes sets this model apart from the others in its range?

The Pentium D 820 processor runs a little slower than the 3GHz version of the same cpu, buts allows a much lower price. The premium paid for the fastest is ridiculous at times and I’d rather go for the slowest in the range, than go for an older processor.

The layout of this model is a little more plain. Other models have extra audio/visual ports at the bottom of the front panel, whereas this one does not. There are still the usual ones at the back for the permanent connections you have.

One great thing is that this one comes standard with 2 hard drives in a RAID 0 setup. What this does it set the two drives up together, with the data being split over them and being managed by the onboard controller. The allows much faster speeds as things can be written to either of the drives saving a lot of time. This comes in handy when recording video as it requires a lot of information to be written very quickly to the drives.

The 1GB of DDR2 memory will do the trick and the 128MB ATI graphics card will give you all you need to connect it up to your television and get things running smoothly together.

Sony VAIO VGC-RC110G Intel Pentium D 830 3GHz

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 | Desktop Computer Reviews, Reviews | No Comments

The Sony VAIO VGC-RC110G desktop computer is a good all round machine serving as a home entertainment center PC. With its fairly plain looks, it might not be a cool as some of their higher end equipment, but good for those looking for something that has a little clout.

When you mention Sony computers, or Sony VAIO computers, the first thing that comes to mind is their laptop computers, but the line of Sony desktop computers also have something to offer.

Their models are all designed to be used in home entertainment centers, I suppose because of Sony’s link to electronics and the entertainment industry. So these computers are aimed in line with the rest of their customer base.

This model sports a Pentium D 830 3GHz processor, which is not the newest in the Pentium D series, but allows for a few savings on more expensive, very up-to-date parts. It serves well in all applications. The 1GB or DDR2 memory is plenty for pretty much any application, and their is the option to upgrade if that vast amount ever becomes too little.

As this relatively cheap Sony computer is designed for your entertainment system it comes with Windows Media Center which allows a lot of options for recording from your TV and getting the most from your system. There is also a DVD drive which will write all of the popular DVD formats. It also includes a DVD-ROM.
A single 250GB hard drive covers all of the storage needs. There are options for RAID with SATA, but will necessitate upgrades if you want to take advantage of these features.

The water cooling of this case is cool as water cooling allows the heat to be transported more effectively, reducing the need for big, or many, fans and leading to less overall noise from the system.

All of the audio/visual ports are available from the front of the case, which makes them accessible, but ugly, so there are more at the back for permanent connections. There is also a card reader built into the third DVD bay from the top.

Its features are fine and it includes a non-descript 128MB video card. It does the trick and has alright looks to match. If you need to use it as a desktop computer, then you will have to get normal Windows to do that. In terms of price, I’m one for getting the cheapest of a series, so one with a slower Pentium D would be my recommendation.