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Only the power button is exposed. You do need to find a home for the system's rather bulky IR receiver for the included Media Center remote , which is about the size of a deck of cards and plugs into a rear USB port. Although the Ultra Edition has a big case, there's little room at the inn. All five drive bays are occupied, so you can't add a second hard drive--not internally, anyway. Outside, it offers a standard complement of USB 2.
The Media Center Ultra Edition suffers from three major problems: the fan on the power supply, the fan on the processor, and the fan on the video card. This terrible trio makes the system so noisy, it's just plain unacceptable in a home-theater environment. Ironically, there's a dial on the back that enables you to adjust the power supply's fan, but turning it only made the system louder.
The graphics card fan is the real culprit, by far the noisiest of the three, but so what? The combined noise level directly interferes with one's enjoyment of games, music, movies, TV, and everything else you'd want to do with the system, especially if the computer is sitting in the middle of your living room. But with MB, the X has enough memory for basic Media Center tasks, such as photo editing, listening to and burning music, and watching and recording TV.
We don't recommend attempting any serious media editing or gaming with either card, however, and even general office multitasking will drag down performance, as evidenced by the X's poor showing on CNET's SysMark performance test. Our X test system's 80GB hard drive has the capacity for about 20 hours of video, and a seven-in-one media-card reader gives you easy access to any photos or music you have stored on a flash memory card.
If you watch a lot of TV, however, we recommend upgrading to a GB drive or adding a second drive which you can do prior to purchase on ZT Group's Web site. Even the most basic Media Center should have a DVD burner--otherwise, all your recorded TV shows will remain trapped on your hard drive. It provided a crisp picture on the bundled inch CRT. With only one TV tuner, you'll need to spend some money to add a second tuner card should you want the ability to record one channel while watching another.
Luckily, there's an empty PCI slot for such an upgrade. We suggest upgrading to a wireless mouse and keyboard; our test system came equipped with standard, wired units. ZT Group backs the system with an onsite-service warranty that includes three-year coverage for parts and lifetime coverage for labor. Instead, you get wired varieties of each from Mitsuko, so you'll have to park a chair at your entertainment center or find room for the system on your desk.
Although it looks like a stereo component, the case provides you with standard PC ports, including USB 2. Unfortunately, getting inside the case requires a Herculean effort: you need to turn over the entire case to remove the bottom screws and flip it again to slide the tight cover off. The reward for your trouble is just one open PCI slot, one free memory socket, and one open hard drive bay. You also get a nicely designed remote control for accessing Media Center features, which reside in a separate interface and include live TV, an interactive TV guide, and a TV-friendly front end for multimedia Windows apps, including My Videos, My Music, My Pictures, and so on.
It's like TiVo on steroids, except that the TV-recording capabilities, while functional, don't come anywhere near TiVo's versatility.
Split personality: the case belongs in your living room, but the monitor belongs on your desk. Cyberpower pairs its Media Center PC with a ViewSonic VGb, an exquisite, inch flat-panel monitor that's ideal for desktop computing but not necessarily for entertaining in the living room.
In our tests, running the TV signal through the PC resulted in a slightly grainy picture, especially when viewed at full screen. Further evidence comes from the Creative Inspire 4. These entry-level speakers sound surprisingly crisp and resonant, but we expected something a bit more robust in an otherwise high-end machine.
Just remember that even though you can archive TV shows to DVD, the resulting files are in a proprietary Microsoft format that prevents them from being viewed elsewhere. Creative's speakers are small, but they deliver a big sound. Gamers will appreciate the Nvidia GeForce4 Ti , which, though no longer a state-of-the-art graphics card, delivers more than enough video vim for today's games.
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