usanettom wrote:This deal looked fantastic - right up until I saw the processor was AMD and the graphics were ATI. Plus, it only has 8GB of RAM. Sure, you could use this as a gaming system - if all your games are at least 3 years old. I guess it'll run the new stuff, but at what cost?? You won't be pwning any noobs with this machine. Well, at least not until you spend the money to upgrade to and Intel CPU and an Nvidia GPU, then upgrade to 16GB or RAM. Then, maybe then will you be able to pwn noobs.

Intel fanboyism detected. Dude, really, if this was an intel CPU based rig, it would be twice the price or more.
Anyhow, They perform the same on the users end for AMD and intel(I have had, and will happily use either, if the price is right).
As far as nvidia and AMD/ATi argument goes, for about the same price(from each card category), you get about the same performance from the manufactures.
4/10 for troll, only because you made me respond so that computer illeterate
people are not confused.

MBanks1970 wrote:No HDMI ports?

This wont work with my TV then. How can i stream to my TV ? I dont think Ive got any USB ports on my TV.

DVI to HDMI adapter, VGA cable with audio cable, or mini HDMI to HDMI( I think the installed card has a mini HDMI port on it.

Come on folks, at $584 to your door, am I wrong to think this is a killer deal for what you're getting?!? It seems to be loaded for the price with a great processor, huge HD, quite a bit of RAM, and 10 USB (albeit 2.0) ports. Gotta keep things in perspective! Yeah, maybe not the BEST gamer, but can that REALLY be expected for less than 600 clams?

We need a new family PC, and have been 'looking' around. Call me crazy, but these seem to be pretty nice specs for a family PC to do some photo editing, HD home videos, and possibly use as a HTPC?

MBanks1970 wrote:No HDMI ports?

This wont work with my TV then. How can i stream to my TV ? I dont think Ive got any USB ports on my TV.

Specs clearly list both HDMI and DVI ports on the rear panel. Picture of the back shows them as well...

The case is junk! Like every ASUS desktop it has VERY flimsy doors over the drives. The ity bitty tabs break off and parts are not available.

Other than that VERY sore point I'm satisfied with the hardware and stability.

I've been using ASUS parts since 1990 or so.

Here's a wonderfully Jatravartid question...

I frequently see people talk about needing to switch out power supplies on PCs like this.

My question: is a power supply a power supply? Is there anything specifc you have to match up, like for size or type of connector the way you have to do with, say Hard Drives (2.5" vs 3.5", SATA, SCSI etc)?

Thanks

rikushix wrote:10 high speed USB 2.0 ports. That really is a good thing: you can never have too many of those. No joke.

Well except for the fact that USB 3 is out now. And it is "supposed" to be up to 10x faster (THAT IS A REALLY BIG CHANGE/FEATURE). It might be widely supported with a Windows 7 update and will be totally supported when Windows 8 comes out.

usanettom wrote:This deal looked fantastic - right up until I saw the processor was AMD and the graphics were ATI. Plus, it only has 8GB of RAM. Sure, you could use this as a gaming system - if all your games are at least 3 years old. I guess it'll run the new stuff, but at what cost?? You won't be pwning any noobs with this machine. Well, at least not until you spend the money to upgrade to and Intel CPU and an Nvidia GPU, then upgrade to 16GB or RAM. Then, maybe then will you be able to pwn noobs.

I can play Crysis on a single core (3.6 GHz), with 2 GB ram, and a NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT with only 256 MB ram. These specs are much lower than what you are talking about. I know the game is older now but it is still the benchmark used.

Bingo969 wrote:Here's a wonderfully Jatravartid question...

I frequently see people talk about needing to switch out power supplies on PCs like this.

My question: is a power supply a power supply? Is there anything specifc you have to match up, like for size or type of connector the way you have to do with, say Hard Drives (2.5" vs 3.5", SATA, SCSI etc)?

Thanks

For the most part any power supply will work. There are different form factors but you would have to go out of your way to find one.
However not all power supplies are the same quality and it isn't a part of the computer to go cheap on. A bad power supply can take out your whole computer if it fails. This Power Supply guide has a lot of useful information about power supplies including a list of recommended brands.

escalante wrote:Well except for the fact that USB 3 is out now. And it is "supposed" to be up to 10x faster (THAT IS A REALLY BIG CHANGE/FEATURE). It might be widely supported with a Windows 7 update and will be totally supported when Windows 8 comes out.

And by that time you will be able to buy a $25 or less USB3.0 PCIexpress card to throw in there. No big deal.

-GG

Texas Wooters - add $48+ for sales tax. Total $633.25

chubbysumo wrote:
Yes, the graphics card is a bit low, but it's easily swapped. The big problem here is that the CPU selected(the 6core amd thubian @ 2.7 Ghz) will require 300w on it's own. (My 955 quad core is 270). That leaves little room for the board and the addon cards, not to mention fans, and a few watts for each USB device plugged it. Don't expect to plug 10 USB devices into this at once, as it would probably overload the PSU, and shut it down. Asus does not make PSU's, so I'm guessing it's an off-branded cheapo PSU.

There's absolutely no way this processor will draw "300 watts on its own". It would burst into flames if it did. The Phenom II X6 1045T has a TDP of 95 watts under load. The other components combined should draw well under 100 watts, so assuming the power supply isn't completely terrible, there should be a fair amount of headroom for a video card upgrade.

A decently powerful modern gaming card shouldn't draw much more than 100 to 150 watts under load (not counting the absolute highest-level cards and multi-GPU monstrosities). An HD 5770 should actually draw less than 100 watts while gaming, so if one of those were added, the total maximum power draw from the system would still likely be under 300 watts.

I'm only curious why something called a "Gaming Desktop" would only have an HD 5450 in it. Why market it for gaming if you're not even going to use a mid-range graphics card? Rather than including 8GB of RAM, most of which won't get touched by current games, they could have cut it down to 4GB and put in a somewhat reasonable card like an HD 5670 instead.

thumperchick wrote:Can I play MineSweeper on it?

Not only can you play Minesweeper, you can stream the movie!

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/2200127/elephant-larry-minesweeper---the-movie

theguruguys wrote:And by that time you will be able to buy a $25 or less USB3.0 PCIexpress card to throw in there. No big deal.

-GG

That is if you have space for the PCI express card, and even then, this will not give you 10 USB 3 ports. And add-ons do not always works as well as built-ins.

Eh well, I was waiting for something like this but with firewire. Meh, guess I'll pull the trigger on one anyhow, it is a solid foundation.

Specs: http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/asus-essentio-cg1330-05/4507-3118_7-34121960.html

Key points highly important for me:

RAM?

Installed Size 8 GB / 16 GB (max)
Technology DDR3 SDRAM

- RAM looks good, I can deal with this just fine.

RAID?

- None listed, and only one user comment says something to the effect of "it has RAID 0".


No highly-advertised hardware RAID? Deal breaker; I'll pass.

Bingo969 wrote:[snip]
My question: is a power supply a power supply? Is there anything specifc you have to match up, like for size or type of connector the way you have to do with, say Hard Drives (2.5" vs 3.5", SATA, SCSI etc)?

Thanks

Well, almost every graphics card that is decent (or better) for gaming will require a 6-pin PCI plug on the power supply. For a high-end card you will need 2 of them. In this computer you can only have one graphics card (there is only one PCIx16 slot), so you DON'T need to plan to have an extra 6-pin connector in case you buy a second card. For this motherboard you need a 24 pin or 20+4 pin main connector. You need at least 2 SATA power connectors, but more is common on power supplies, and the extras may be nice in case you want a second hard drive or a second optical drive (maybe Blu-Ray).

That's it for connectors, but you will probably want to get a power supply that is 80+ certified, meaning it's at least 80% efficient under load. 450 watts should be fine for you if you get a Radeon HD 5770 or a Nvidia GTS 450 (both good cards for the price). 500 watts and two 6-pin PCI plugs would give you power to upgrade to a Radeon HD 6870 (much better than the 5770, and also more expensive, but similar in performance per dollar).

Davidm122 wrote:There's absolutely no way this processor will draw "300 watts on its own". It would burst into flames if it did. The Phenom II X6 1045T has a TDP of 95 watts under load. The other components combined should draw well under 100 watts, so assuming the power supply isn't completely terrible, there should be a fair amount of headroom for a video card upgrade.

A decently powerful modern gaming card shouldn't draw much more than 100 to 150 watts under load (not counting the absolute highest-level cards and multi-GPU monstrosities). An HD 5770 should actually draw less than 100 watts while gaming, so if one of those were added, the total maximum power draw from the system would still likely be under 300 watts.

I'm only curious why something called a "Gaming Desktop" would only have an HD 5450 in it. Why market it for gaming if you're not even going to use a mid-range graphics card? Rather than including 8GB of RAM, most of which won't get touched by current games, they could have cut it down to 4GB and put in a somewhat reasonable card like an HD 5670 instead.

I hate to say that you are wrong, but you are. The TDP is Thermal Design Power. Its the amount of HEAT the CPU puts off, not the amount of energy it draws.
My personal rig is as follows
Asus M4N98TD EVO AM3 mobo
AMD PhenomII x4 955BE @ 3.4
8GB DDR3 Giel ValuRAM @ 1066
2x Nvidia based GTX460 1GB
2x500GB WD HDDs

For my rig

The graphics cards alone are rated at 300w max draw for power(they have 2 6pin plugs each, and this means 150w from the PCI express port, and 75w each for the 6pin plugs.). The AMD phenom 955BE is a 125wTDP CPU, but it is rated to draw up to 270w(it is powered by an 8pin plug just for the CPU), and each RAM stick uses about 10w, and each fan in it will use between 6 and 30w(depends on the fan, look at usage ratings, I have 5 13w fans in my case.).
Each USB port uses between 2 and 15w, and the HDD will use about 15w.

Link to thubian 6 core wattage usage under load
http://www.techspot.com/review/269-amd-phenom2-x6-1090T-and-1055T/page9.html
Granted, this is a higher model than the one in this computer for sale, but figure it would only use about 20% less wattage.

What TDP means
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power

Look up the rest on your own, i hope this has been informative, and educative, because I know my computers.

chubbysumo wrote: Don't expect to plug 10 USB devices into this at once, as it would probably overload the PSU, and shut it down. Asus does not make PSU's, so I'm guessing it's an off-branded cheapo PSU.

Each USB device would use at a max of 500mA (2.5watt at 5volts). Most will use less. So at most you are looking at 2.5watts per device. Plugging in 10 devices using all 500mA each at the same time would be 25Watts, or 5Amps at 5 volts.

In other words, its highly unlikely the USB ports would be the reason the stock power supply would fail. In the highly unlikely situation of needing that many powered usb devices at once your best bet is to get an externally power USB hub anyway.

-GG

P.S. And don't forget the total wattage of the PSU is not spread out dynamically, check out the Amperage ratings for the +12v, +5v, +3.3v. They can vary greatly even on the same Wattage PSU depending on make and model.

theguruguys wrote:Each USB device would use at a max of 500mA (2.5watt at 5volts). Most will use less. So at most you are looking at 2.5watts per device. Plugging in 10 devices using all 500mA each at the same time would be 25Watts, or 5Amps at 5 volts.

In other words, its highly unlikely the USB ports would be the reason the stock power supply would fail. In the highly unlikely situation of needing that many powered usb devices at once your best bet is to get an externally power USB hub anyway.

-GG

As said in my previous post, USB 2.0 is rated from 2 to 15 watts. External HDDS that are powered by the USB port use what a normal HDD would, around 10W. The Ipad2 charges at 10w. know the specs.

chubbysumo wrote:
Each USB port uses between 2 and 15w, and the HDD will use about 15w.

Look up the rest on your own, i hope this has been informative, and educative, because I know my computers.

15w for a USB port? That would be 3Amps on a USB device. The spec for USB2.0 is .500mA, or 5watts.

Did you mean total for the USB ports or perhaps my math is all wrong, I did get up early with little sleep!

-GG

chubbysumo wrote:As said in my previous post, USB 2.0 is rated from 2 to 15 watts. External HDDS that are powered by the USB port use what a normal HDD would, around 10W. The Ipad2 charges at 10w. know the specs.

When you say normal Hard Drive, do you mean normal 2.5 or 3.5"? You are not gonna power a 3.5" drive under USB, only 2.5" ones. External USB drives (2.5" ones) will use 500ma at 5v (2.5w). The ones that need more will have a USB cord with a loop that lets you plug it into two ports allowing 1A total but most do not need that these days. Even 1A is only 5W, and I don't know of any 2.5" drives that need that much power so I don't know where you are getting your 10W from?

Volts times Amps = Watts
External 2.5" HDD at 5v 500ma = 2.5W.

I bet you notice an iPad2 charges slower when connected to most PC USB ports than when using a wall charger which will supply it with the full 2A (10Watts). Charging devices will adapt to the amount of amperage they receive, they don't 'require' the full amount.

-GG

Refurbished price at bestbuy.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp;jsessionid=554F3AF614285986E97C66BC76D16BF9.bbolsp-app02-44?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=3612015636962265977&id=pcat17071&type=page&st=Essentio+CG1330&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&Guide Entry=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960

theguruguys wrote:I bet the iPad2 charges slower when connected to the PC than when using a wall charger.

it may, but yes, the USB 2.0 spec can go up to 15 watts( i think my math is correct here, correct if wrong, going from wikipedia page)

1 unit load is 500mA. each device can use up to 5 unit loads if they are available. Also, they can draw much more than that if the system lets them. I have tested with a wall plug watt meter to see what my Iphone4 uses while just chaging on the wall, and its sat around 3 watts. using while charging brought it to 6 watts. Now, i bet it pulls the same from the computer. I have seen USB devices rated at 15w, and yes, they should use an external power supply, or a second port, but they dont because that would cost more to integrate/provide.

I have this very computer. I bought it at best buy for more than the WOOT price. Generally good, but here are my gripes :
The front audio in/out minijacks are very noisy. The video card fan (i think) runs at full speed all the time, making it rather noisy. I bought it primarily for audio editing/recording, so that sucks. Gonna have to swap the video card even though I don't even really use it for gaming.

chubbysumo wrote:it may, but yes, the USB 2.0 spec can go up to 15 watts( i think my math is correct here, correct if wrong, going from wikipedia page)

1 unit load is 500mA. each device can use up to 5 unit loads if they are available. Also, they can draw much more than that if the system lets them. I have tested with a wall plug watt meter to see what my Iphone4 uses while just chaging on the wall, and its sat around 3 watts. using while charging brought it to 6 watts. Now, i bet it pulls the same from the computer. I have seen USB devices rated at 15w, and yes, they should use an external power supply, or a second port, but they dont because that would cost more to integrate/provide.

I edited my previous post a bit before you posted this with the watt/amp/volts formula. You are correct that some computers will allow extra current (amps) from USB2.0, they are usually marketed specially for this and USB3.0 allows 900ma by specification. The new Macbooks will allow up to 1.1a on one port if I'm not mistaken. This is an exception, and even the wikipedia page I think you are referencing states 500ma per port which is 2.5W at 5 Volts.

You devices will indeed pull more from the wall wart and charge faster.

-GG

P.S. Not trying to get into battle, just like to get facts right and prove myself wrong if that's the case, its how we all learn

vladistov wrote:I think you skeptics are missing the main point: it's not a refurbished HP machine.

Here's a a little secret, HP get's most of their hardware from ASUS, it's just un-branded..

Who comes to woot! for a gaming desktop anyway???

I'm really tempted to get this as I've been looking to upgrade my 3-year old Alienware laptop, which is starting to have issues with newer games.

Found this deal on newegg. I'm guessing it'd be good enough/compatible with this system but I always get confused when comparing Nvidia and ATI cards. Could anybody help tell me if this is much improvement over the video card included in the woot? Obviously, the power supply is an improvement.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.628682

SonovaVondruke wrote:Here's a a little secret, HP get's most of their hardware from ASUS, it's just un-branded..

This is not true. At most an HP desktop may have an Asus unbranded mainboard or DVD Drive (though I have yet to see an Asus DVD drive in an HP, they are usually other brands). The hard drive, ram, power supply, processor, heatsink/fan, etc etc are not made by Asus.

HP just sends bids out and takes the lowest cost vendor for the specs of the system they are manufacturing. I really hate HP, I do not recommend them at all for anything these days, but to say HP gets most of their parts from Asus untrue.

-GG

I went for one, but need to add firewire. Anyone want to share some insight on a firewire PCI 1x card that performs respectably? Would I be as well off just moving to USB 2.0 for an audio interface, or would a card still provide most of what native firewire would?

Right now i can get a great deal on a mackie onyx 8201 from a band mate, or I could grab a decent USB 2.0 mixer instead and not have to buy a card.

allhighruler wrote:This is a decent desktop, but don't plan on any massive games because it only has a 2.7GHs processor. If you want a nice computer, you must build it from scratch. Or if you have money to blow, head over to alienware.com and find all the most powerful computers known to the public.

2.7 is great when you have 6 cores. I have the Hex-Core 2.7 and it is amazing. It also overclocks like crazy and you can get it up to about 4.0GHZ no problems. Yeah... 4GHZ on 6 Cores!

This computer with a new GPU would be amazing

pitchleague wrote:I'm really tempted to get this as I've been looking to upgrade my 3-year old Alienware laptop, which is starting to have issues with newer games.

Found this deal on newegg. I'm guessing it'd be good enough/compatible with this system but I always get confused when comparing Nvidia and ATI cards. Could anybody help tell me if this is much improvement over the video card included in the woot? Obviously, the power supply is an improvement.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.628682

Yes that card is a great card. Better than the one the PC comes with by about 5 times.

cheroke55 wrote:They fixed my graphics card and let me pick the replacement card, as long as I paid the overage allowed for the replacement. The card was $349 over the $110 allowed.
I don't think it matters if you upgrade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act protects you from having your warranty void if you decide to install an alternative component in your computer. Thus, legally, you are allowed to add memory, replace the hard drive, install a blu-ray drive, or a new video card without fear of your warranty being void. However, it's likely that your warranty will not cover the new component(s) and should they fail, it's up to you to have those components warrantied by their manufacturer under the warranty supplied with those components. You are not required to take the system to an authorized service center, either.

Peperpuppy wrote: Anyone want to share some insight on a firewire PCI 1x card that performs respectably?

Personally I have had no real difference between brands/chipsets of the Firewire cards I have used for video purposes. If you look around various forums and such most people highly encourage FireWire cards that feature the Texas Instruments chipset.

pitchleague wrote: Could anybody help tell me if this is much improvement over the video card included in the woot? Obviously, the power supply is an improvement.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.628682

According to Nvidia's website, a 400Watt power supply which this Asus comes with is sufficient to power the GTX 550Ti.

-GG

EDIT: Also that power supply may or may not be much of an improvement over the stock. I saw 25A on the +12 in the specs for it. The cheap off rband Diablotek 400watt power supply I have next to me also has 25A on the +12. I can't find the power supply specs for the PSU in this ASUS, but its probably just as good as that '600' watt one.

It doesn't have a card that costs as much as the system does currently, so it can't run games at all!

opps wrote:That is if you have space for the PCI express card, and even then, this will not give you 10 USB 3 ports. And add-ons do not always works as well as built-ins.

I don't know of any PC's that have 10 USB3.0 ports, certainly nothing even close to this price! Most of them have 2 or 4 USB3.0 ports and a bunch of USB2.0 ports. Even awesome new mainboards like the Asus Sabertooth P67 only have 4 USB3.0 ports.

If I were making the decision to buy this machine and it came down to lack of USB3.0 ports, I would not let that affect my buying decision.

pitchleague wrote:I'm really tempted to get this as I've been looking to upgrade my 3-year old Alienware laptop, which is starting to have issues with newer games.

Found this deal on newegg. I'm guessing it'd be good enough/compatible with this system but I always get confused when comparing Nvidia and ATI cards. Could anybody help tell me if this is much improvement over the video card included in the woot? Obviously, the power supply is an improvement.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.628682

600 watts is over kill for that video card. you dont need mre then 400 watts for that card. getting a new psu would be a good idea but what you are looking at is some Jatravartid off brand that might fry your system (i've seen a 100 times, people skimp on the psu and end up frying their whole system when they use shoddy power supply and power hungry gpu) i have had no problems with ulta, and cool master psus, and if you want the best psu on the market you get a corsair. this one from new egg is only 25$ bucks after rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139017

i encourage you do to your own research. but you will find that corsair is wildly believed to be the best out there. dont let the cheap price fool you, they normally arent this cheap. might be coming out with a new line or something, but you wont be disappointed with your previously mentioned video card (evga is the best in biz IMO) and this psu. happy pwning!

I don't plan to use this PC for gaming but rather for video editing (AVCHD format). Will it be able to handle it okay? Will the weak video card be an issue?

Any advice is appreciated.