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Printed On: | September 7, 2008, 9:54 pm |
| Category: | Systems & Enterprise | |
| Type: | Reviews | |
| Posted By: | floppy | |
| Date Posted: | June 23, 2008, 5:44 am |
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Discrete graphics in a 4 liter tank
The market has seen many PC manufacturers roll out small form factor PCs over the past 24 months since the introduction of Intel's Core 2 Duo platform, where heat has became a minimal issue with its nominal TDP of 65watts, which is often lower. With the likes of Acer, Compaq, Gigabyte and others, many have rolled out their own renditions of mini desktops that take up minimal desk space, but most if not all of them comes equipped with weak integrated graphics that don't quite provide enough juice for memory intensive applications and games apart from DoTA!
The Asus Essentio was announced earlier this year in March as the smallest desktop PC that comes equipped with a discrete graphics solution. Not only that, the Essentio doesn't only come equipped with the necessary components, there are quite a few surprises too. Read on while we walk you through on the wonders of this little machine.
First, the Specs.
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Operation System
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Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium,
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Processor
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Intel Core2 Duo/Pentium D/Pentium Dual-Core/Pentium 4
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Chipset
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North Bridge:
Intel G35 South Bridge: Intel ICH8 |
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Memory
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2 x SODIMM Slots Dual Channel DDR2 800 MHz. Support max 4 GB.
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Graphics
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Nvidia Geforce MXM MN8600M GT 256M
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Hard Drive
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SATA
2.5" 250G ~ 1TB |
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Optical Drive
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Slot-in Slim Blue-ray/DVD Writer
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LAN/WLAN
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Gigabit LOM
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Audio
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Azalia 7.1 Channel
S/PDIF out (Optical) |
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Front Panel
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1 x 10 -in-1 Card Reader
1 x Headphone 1 x Microphone 1 x IEEE 1394 (4 PIN) 2 x USB 2.0 |
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Rear Panel
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1 x D-sub(VGA)
1 x HDMI 1 x Line-In/Line-Out(Front L/R)/Mic-in 1 x Back Surround LR/Side Surround LR/Center LFE 1 x RJ45 LAN 1 x S/PDIF-out (Optical) 4 x USB 2.0 1 x DC Power in |
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Dimension&Weight
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80x290x200 mm (W x H x D)
3.4 Kgs |
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Power Supply
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120 W
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Accessories
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1 x Multi-media Keyboard (USB)
1 x Multi-media Mouse (USB) 1 x Anti-slip Pad |
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A First Look
The Essentio in 3/4 view
Front I/O with a SD Card Reader included
The rear I/O. 4 USB ports, 7 channel HD sound with your beloved optical out. VIdeo consists of a HDMI and VGA output, with an included HDMI--> DVI converter.
2x 60mm fans serves as the exhaust for the system. A noticeable whine is produced when the system is on load.
The Slot in optical drive on the Essentio.
The top ventilation vents that serves as passive intake.
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Dwelling in
Next, we popped the hood of the machine to reveal a tightly packed interior.
Off goes the hard drive and optical drive compartment, and here are the internals
The CPU heatsink with double heatpipes, similar to the Nova that we dissected a few months back. A Core 2 Duo E4600 processor sits below the block of metal.
The discrete graphics solution exposed! A Geforce 8600 M GT MXM solution! The Essentio comes with onboard graphics as well thanks to the G35 MCH, which kicks in when the MXm module is removed.
2 SODIMM slots are available for some dual channel goodness.
Cooling solution competely removed, leaving the bare board.
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The components and accessories
The MXM module with the heatpiped cooling solution, which is double acts as a chipset cooler as well
The CPU heatsink with dual heatpipes, an improvised version from what we saw in the Nova.
A single stick of DDR-800 2GB SODIMM is provided.
The Essentio uses a 3.5" 7200RPM drive isntead of the 2.5" that we saw in the Nova.
The Essentio that we recieved came with a slot-in slim Blu-Ray burner by Panasonic! This is pretty much the first of its kind that we've seen in the market at this point of time, and a brief search on Google shows that the drive costs a hefty 750 Euros if purchased alone.
A optical mouse and laptop style scissors keyboard is included in the package as well.
A 120W adaptor, remote control, HDMI-DVI adaptor and an anti-slip pad is provided as part of the accessories.
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Conclusion
A brief 3D Mark 06 run yields a score of 3078 marks, and we're pretty sure that a significant performance boost can be achieved if we pop in another stick of 2GB SODIMM for dual-channel operation. This is definitely not too shabby for a machine of this size!
A nice glow is emmited from the optical drive slot when the system is powered up.
The Asus Essentio is definitely one of the mini-desktop systems that's HTPC-worthy with the introduction of the slot in Blu Ray drive. I'm pretty sure that the the Essentio with this option will cost an arm and a leg to boot, but the enthusiast seeking out for the best HTPC option might just choose to wait no more and fork out that sum of money to end their quest for the best HTPC. With the discrete G84 MXM solution, optical out and the almighty Blu Ray writer equipped, there isn't much more a home theater enthusiast can expect from their machine.
The bundled processor, the Core 2 Duo E4600 is definitely fast enough for most applications, and for the more demanding users, the G35-based mainboard readily accepts any other Core 2 Duo processor that you might throw at it, without the restrictions that we faced previously on the Nova with its 946GZ chipset.
The MXM format has been around for quite a few years, but was never popularly adopted till 2008, where Asus launched a series of graphic solution utilizing the MXM format, a key example would me the Asus Trinity 3850X3 graphics card that we've reviewed in our labs about a month back. Asus might end up leading another revolution by rolling out more MXM solutions out into the market, creating opportunities for other smaller players to enter the market with solutions, in a completely new foray.
The only daunting point - We have yet to recieve any form of pricing from Asus regarding this unit. Nevertheless, we like what we see, and the Essentio definitely deserves something worthy with all that features packed in.
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