2GHz Phenom X4 9350e
4GB DDR2
640GB hard drive
Blu-ray reader/DVD±RW
None
Nvidia GeForce 9500 GS (512MB)
Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)
It's rare that we encounter a home theater PC better suited to gaming than to traditional media chores. But that certainly seems to be the case with HP's $999 Pavilion Slimline s3650f.
On the front panel you'll find a 15-in-1 card reader, along with two USB ports and a headphone jack (no place to plug in a microphone, though), and a bay for accepting a proprietary HP Pocket Media Drive storage device. The collection of rear-panel connections is completed with two PS/2, four USB, one FireWire, one Ethernet, and basic audio ports. The presence of both the video card and the TV tuner, combined with all the drive placement up front, means that this desktop's post-purchase expansion potential is essentially nonexistent, however.
Of course, the Gateway lacks the HP's more tangible media pluses: a Blu-ray reader and DVD±RW combo drive, an ATSC/NTSC TV tuner, an HDMI port for sending video from your computer to your HDTV, a digital audio-out jack, and even integrated 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Its entertainment center-friendly black-and-silver look, small size (it measures approximately 10.9x4.2x13.4 inches, HWD), and larger hard drive (640GB) are extra bonuses for the s3650f. Overall, the HP is roughly on a par with Gateway's own new low-budget home theater PC, the LX6200-01, which costs $779.
Surprisingly, the s3650f did not sail through all of productivity benchmarks. In fact, it was bettered in nearly every test by the considerably less expensive Gateway DX4710-05 ($679). The Windows Vista Home Premium-based s3650f comes with an energy-efficient but underperforming 2GHz AMD Phenom X4 9350e processor and 4GB of DDR2 RAM. The DX4710-05, on the other hand, is loaded with an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU and 6GB of RAM, but it isn't masquerading an entertainment PC, even though it than enough juice to do so if it wanted.
The s3650f needed 5 minutes and 15 seconds to finish our Windows Media Encoder test and 5 minutes and 58 seconds to convert 11 songs to AAC format in iTunes; the DX4710-05 needed just 4 minutes and 8 seconds and 4 minutes and 11 seconds, respectively. The Gateway even surpassed the HP in our 32-bit test of Futuremark's PCMark Vantage (4,604 versus 4,005) and our 64-bit run of the Cinebench 10 rendering benchmark (9,478 versus 7,539).
But the Slimline stands out in one key area: 3D graphics. Its discrete Nvidia GeForce 9500 GS graphics card with 512MB of video memory gives it enough power to satisfy those with modest gaming ambitions. In our DirectX 9 (DX9) Company of Heroes test at the default settings, the s3650f pulled out an average frame rate of 45.1 frames per second (fps), and even in the DX10 version of the test, it managed 44fps—more than solid for a system that wasn't really designed with gaming in mind.
Some useful software (muvee autoProducer Basic, for making and burning home videos, Blu-ray movie-watching software, Microsoft Works 9, and 60-day trial versions of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and Norton Internet Security), and a one-year limited warranty round out the package. But with its better-than-usual graphics, the s3650f is already well-rounded enough for the living room, the bedroom, or almost anywhere else you can find a little spare space for it. If you need a dazzling performer for a low price, you can do better, but the overall collection of media features make the HP harder to beat.
Price (at time of review): $999 (as tested)author : Matthew Murray
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