Holy moley! That's one heck of a PC! Great price!

The PSU is only 300w... so you would have to upgrade that before you could upgrade the videocard.

capguncowboy wrote:The PSU is only 300w... so you would have to upgrade that before you could upgrade the videocard.

And that videocard is in desperate need of replacing

Not bad but should have been under $500 for a referb

capguncowboy wrote:The PSU is only 300w... so you would have to upgrade that before you could upgrade the videocard.

I will never get why these companies cheap out on power supplies. Would putting in (at least) a 500w cost that much more?

The X6 Phenom II 1045STprocessor in this scores right in the middle of Passmark's High End CPU Chart with a score of 5105. Its a VERY capable processor.

The Radeon HD 5570 ranks a 762 on passmark's chart. More serious gamers will want to swap it out for a faster card, along with a more powerful power supply if needed (read the graphics card specs before replacing the power supply, most but not all of them will need more).

The July '11 issue of Consumer Reports (that's right, from the future) gave the HPE-410Y their second highest rating among desktop computers. This is an HPE-410F - I'm not exactly sure what the differences are, the specs I have look the same.

Word of warning. I bought this same desktop from Best Buy (refurbished by HP) about 6 months ago. It's spent more time on the repair bench at HP than it has on my computer desk. HP has been diligently trying to screw me over time and again after I bought it. I've had to send it back THREE TIMES for repair for defects that should have been fixed before I bought it. I finally got it back earlier this month and it seems to be running good. Though I'm furious that it was originally listed (as I bought it) at $750 and now it's down to $550. Do yourselves a favor, if you do buy this PC then get the SquareTrade extended warranty. HP WILL NOT HELP YOU IF IT IS DEFECTIVE!

zaiwhat wrote:Not bad but should have been under $500 for a referb

Maybe for a quad core.. but a six core? This is a pretty decent deal.

Unfortunately no gigabit NIC.

nice specs for price. solid reviews. thinking about taking the plunge

scott96z wrote:Word of warning. I bought this same desktop from Best Buy (refurbished by HP) about 6 months ago. It's spent more time on the repair bench at HP than it has on my computer desk

Do yourselves a favor, if you do buy this PC then get the SquareTrade extended warranty. HP WILL NOT HELP YOU IF IT IS DEFECTIVE!

Some of you may have seen me mention this before, but I avoid HP, especially their refurbs, like the plague. I bought an HP Factory Refurbished desktop and it came full of dust! They apparently have no quality control on refurbished machines. If a regular customer would have bought this they would have no reason to open it up and notice the heatsink was totally clogged!

shadowplay1 wrote:I will never get why these companies cheap out on power supplies. Would putting in (at least) a 500w cost that much more?

You could get a 500W for about $40. It's still a great deal. I priced putting this computer together on Amazon and the total (including paying $100 for an OS) came to about $900.

If I was in the market for a new PC, I'd jump on this deal.

Keep in mind that this is a only a BluRay reader. It cannot write onto BluRay discs. It's great for playing BluRays, but you won't be able to use it for backing up. Ultimately, it's not as useful as one might think since standalone players cost less than $100 these days. You can, however, use the reader to rip BlueRays into video files.

Can any1 tell me what is the difference between six quad dual core processor if I only run 1-2 programs most time?which one is faster?for game only.

scott96z wrote:Do yourselves a favor, if you do buy this PC then get the SquareTrade extended warranty. HP WILL NOT HELP YOU IF IT IS DEFECTIVE!

I agree 100%. Ask me about my $350 doorstop and all the owners I've had to inform that their laptops were dead thanks to a defective graphics chip. Now ask me how many of those owners, including myself, got ANY satisfaction from HP/Compaq and I will tell you none...

We got one of these (exact same specs and model) on a shipment at my part-time job as a bench tester at an eBay liquidator. I convinced the manager not to have me list it on eBay, but rather keep it for internal use, hoping he would get the hint and let me start using it at my test bench. He said "Sure, we can keep it." Two weeks later it's his new computer and I get his hand-me-down Dell Vostro. Them's the breaks.

So anyway, I did get to test it before reluctantly turning it over to the boss, and it screams. A word of warning: HP seems to use substandard case and CPU fans, because both had failed on our system which was the reason we ended up with it (we often bid on and get "warranty returns" from other companies; they have a simple issue that I will fix, we then resell as used on eBay).

About turning this into a great gaming computer vs. building your own gaming pc...

Some of the newer higher end graphics cards require A LOT of room to be installed and many of these stock computers do not come with cases that will fit them. When they do fit air circulation can become an issue. Furthermore, the larger graphics card can make the stock cables going to devices no longer reach as well as it making it very difficult to work in the case.

To turn this into a good gaming machine you will have to get a better powerful power supply ($100) to use a graphics card like the Radeon 6950 ($220).

So you are looking $555 for the computer, $100 for the Power Supply, $220 for the graphics card (if it fits) and since its an HP I'd almost have to buy the $90 Squaretrade warranty.

That's a total of $965, and that's IF the graphics card will fit in the case and has decent ventilation afterwards. You can build a MUCH better gaming system for around that price:

Case: Cooler Master 922 $100
Power Supply: Corasir TX750 $100
Mainboard: $220 Asus Sabertooh P67 Rev 3.0
CPU: i5 2500K $179
Graphics: Ati Radeon 6950 $220
HD: Samsung 1TB Spinpoint ($65)
Blu-Ray: LG 12x Writer $90
Keyboard/Mouse: $30
OS: Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-bit OEM $90
RAM: 8GB Patriot Signature 8GB $78

Total: $1177 (probably a few hundred cheaper as I didn't price search, mostly just used newegg's prices). In this build you get a MUCH better mainboard (USB3.0 etc), faster processor with nice overclocking capabilities, support Dual Graphics Card's/SLI, better case and fans, Blu-Ray Writer not just reader and more. You could drop $100 from the price and get a cheaper mainboard if you don't want future SLI capabilities.

One the other hand, if you are just doing Photoshop, video editing, casual gaming and those types of things the specs on this system are perfect for you without any upgrades at all, and the price isn't too bad.

I built nearly this exact PC, only better, for about the same price. Convenient buy though I guess.

scott96z wrote:Word of warning. I bought this same desktop from Best Buy (refurbished by HP) about 6 months ago. It's spent more time on the repair bench at HP than it has on my computer desk. HP has been diligently trying to screw me over time and again after I bought it. I've had to send it back THREE TIMES for repair for defects that should have been fixed before I bought it. I finally got it back earlier this month and it seems to be running good. Though I'm furious that it was originally listed (as I bought it) at $750 and now it's down to $550. Do yourselves a favor, if you do buy this PC then get the SquareTrade extended warranty. HP WILL NOT HELP YOU IF IT IS DEFECTIVE!

I have almost the same computer just a quad core and a few years older and it runs great, wouldnt hesitate to buy an hp again!

If you want a new one, here it is at Amazon. $815 including shipping. 3.5 out of 5 stars with 15 reviews.

I'm in the market for an HTPC/Media Center machine & this seems about right.
Anyone know if one can connect 2 monitors to the graphics card that comes with it?

spaceturnip wrote:I'm in the market for an HTPC/Media Center machine & this seems about right.
Anyone know if one can connect 2 monitors to the graphics card that comes with it?

based on the review from amazon, yes.

mrfox2 wrote:Maybe for a quad core.. but a six core? This is a pretty decent deal.

The difference is like 50 bucks. It may be a decent deal, but the core difference(4->6) isn't the reason it would be a decent deal.

Your stereotypical HP refurb on Woot:

- CPU: 16 cores running at 4.7 GHz
- Memory: 32GB DDR5
- HDD: 1.5PB, 20,000 RPM
- Video: ATI Radeon X9000 with 16GB dedicated RAM
- Optical drive: Reads and writes all known formats; new FutureBrite(tm) technology ensures reading of most formats not invented yet
- Power supply: 250W


Your stereotypical Woot community reaction:

"Keep in mind that the optical drive won't write to most formats not invented yet."

eco2geek wrote:Your stereotypical HP refurb on Woot:

- CPU: 16 cores running at 4.7 GHz
- Memory: 32GB DDR5
- HDD: 1.5PB, 20,000 RPM
- Video: ATI Radeon X9000 with 16GB dedicated RAM
- Optical drive: Reads and writes all known formats; new FutureBrite(tm) technology ensures reading of most formats not invented yet
- Power supply: 250W


Your stereotypical Woot community reaction:

"Keep in mind that the optical drive won't write to most formats not invented yet."

Lol so true.

zmh1175 wrote:Can any1 tell me what is the difference between six quad dual core processor if I only run 1-2 programs most time?which one is faster?for game only.

Not much if you're doing specifically gaming (as of now). Games do not utilize 6 cores yet, and actually perform a little worse. 6 cores is needed more in video processing and stuff that is CPU heavy. Games will eventually utilize 6 cores just as games eventually moved to 4 cores. If you want to future proof your computer for later, I would go with a 6 core as you wont notice the slightly worse gameplay. But if you want to cut back on money I would go with a quad core.

zmh1175 wrote:Can any1 tell me what is the difference between six quad dual core processor if I only run 1-2 programs most time?which one is faster?for game only.

Hex core and quad core, the only difference is that you get 2 more cores to even out the work load. However, most programs do not use all 6 cores, unless you do a lot of 3D modeling, video editing / rendering, simulation, scientific calculation stuffs. Basically unless you are a dev, or maybe engineer or scientist, you don't need a hex core. Or maybe you want to have to just so you can have it, it's not that much more, lol.

For best performance in gaming, look for higher clock speed over high cores number. Quad core is more than enough for gaming. I think most games just switched to use 2 - 3 cores, others are just at idle. Also game rely a lot more on graphics card.

*Note, you can always overclock and unlock cores from your AMD Phenom ii x4, think most of them are just hex core with 2 locked. Some settings in the Bios will unclock it given you have a decent motherboard.

My wife and I bought a similar HP refurb from woot earlier this year - almost identical with the exception of it being quad core, rather than 6 core. We hooked it to our TV in the living room to watch TV online as well as BluRay movies.

Not a day went by that I didn't want to put my fist through its case and rip out its still beating processor, all Temple of Doom style.

The computer generally worked OK, but the constant and inconveniently timed reminders, updates, security BS, etc were just too frustrating. There was always some little irritating this the computer would do to interrupt whatever we wanted to do. Not to mention the stock software package for watching BluRay movies SUCKS! it wont play many newer movies and the navigation is nearly impossible. (I'm not paying $50 more for BluRay player software either)

Long story short: I regret buying the computer. We got a PS3 to solve the BluRay issue and are waiting to ditch the HP for a Mac Mini when we find a good deal on one. The End

theguruguys wrote:

Case: Cooler Master 922 $100
Power Supply: Corasir TX750 $100
Mainboard: $220 Asus Sabertooh P67 Rev 3.0
CPU: i5 2500K $179
Graphics: Ati Radeon 6950 $220
HD: Samsung 1TB Spinpoint ($65)
Blu-Ray: LG 12x Writer $90
Keyboard/Mouse: $30
OS: Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-bit OEM $90
RAM: 8GB Patriot Signature 8GB $78

thanx for taking the time to do this.

Scarabkafer wrote:My wife and I bought a similar HP refurb from woot earlier this year - almost identical with the exception of it being quad core, rather than 6 core. We hooked it to our TV in the living room to watch TV online as well as BluRay movies.

Not a day went by that I didn't want to put my fist through its case and rip out its still beating processor, all Temple of Doom style.

The computer generally worked OK, but the constant and inconveniently timed reminders, updates, security BS, etc were just too frustrating. There was always some little irritating this the computer would do to interrupt whatever we wanted to do. Not to mention the stock software package for watching BluRay movies SUCKS! it wont play many newer movies and the navigation is nearly impossible. (I'm not paying $50 more for BluRay player software either)

Long story short: I regret buying the computer. We got a PS3 to solve the BluRay issue and are waiting to ditch the HP for a Mac Mini when we find a good deal on one. The End

Sounds to me like you have a problem with Windows 7 and the low quality bloatware on the hard drive (should have been expecting the bloatware), not the quality of the computer. All of the problems you mentioned---Security, reminders, updates in general---can be easily taken care of. Just throwing that out there.

Billwaa wrote:.

*Note, you can always overclock and unlock cores from your AMD Phenom ii x4, think most of them are just hex core with 2 locked. Some settings in the Bios will unclock it given you have a decent motherboard.

To piggy back on this post--Don't even think about thinking about doing this until you've purchased a better power supply and ditch the stock CPU heatsink.

YFZblu wrote:Sounds to me like you have a problem with Windows 7 and the low quality bloatware on the hard drive (should have been expecting the bloatware), not the quality of the computer. All of the problems you mentioned---Security, reminders, updates in general---can be easily taken care of. Just throwing that out there.

tried that

I removed a ton of junk that came preinstalled on the computer, changed remider/security settings, etc.
but that didn't help as muchas I might like, it is simply an irritating computer. I don't want to start the PC/Mac argument, but yes, Windows 7 has alot to do with it. I was hoping it would be a much bigger improvement over Vista. Nope. It will be the last PC I buy for a loooong time.

theguruguys wrote:If a regular customer would have bought this they would have no reason to open it up and notice the heatsink was totally clogged!

That's pretty gross!

”My DVI, HDMI, and 7 USB ports are just aching to have your devices inside them. Click now.”

a promiscuous computer with 7 ports. I might have to hit that.... button. :-)

Don't waste your money. Got the quad-core version of this PC a few months ago on here. Locks up, extremely slow processing, and already is having issues where it won't recognize the DVD/CD drive. Says the driver is bad, but when you go to update the driver it says it is good. Not to mention, Windows 7 is a horrible OS. If I can get the drive working, gonna wipe and format the hard drive and put XP back on it, MAYBE that will solve some of the multiple issus with this piece of junk. If not, I'll just scrap it and buy a new one.

Scarabkafer wrote:tried that

I removed a ton of junk that came preinstalled on the computer, changed remider/security settings, etc.
but that didn't help as muchas I might like, it is simply an irritating computer. I don't want to start the PC/Mac argument, but yes, Windows 7 has alot to do with it. I was hoping it would be a much bigger improvement over Vista. Nope. It will be the last PC I buy for a loooong time.

Tried that? It is simply an irritating computer? Windows 7 is not an improvement over Windows Vista? lolll. I'll be honest with you, in the nicest way possible--You're very very wrong. You should probably find yourself a safe house or a relative close by. Lay low for a while.

Are you suggesting that there are supernatural outside forces causing computers to suck? I understand the appeal of a Mac computer--I'm a fan of Unix-based and they ARE pretty; however I'm not a fan of paying twice as much for the hardware.

YFZblu wrote:Sounds to me like you have a problem with Windows 7 and the low quality bloatware on the hard drive (should have been expecting the bloatware), not the quality of the computer. All of the problems you mentioned---Security, reminders, updates in general---can be easily taken care of. Just throwing that out there.

PCDeCrapifier works pretty well!

Sorry... no Gigabit ethernet, no wireless A/B/G/N (so many wireless networks in our building we *have* to use 5GHz), no firewire or eSATA, and the biggest deal breaker...
that M-O-R-O-NICALLY designed case with the power switch on the TOP of the case.

Can ANYONE tell me why HP felt the need put the power switch on the TOP of the case?