I got offered this (Tarinder reviewed it a while back, cant find a link anywhere) from David, and I thought, "Well I need a second PC for Sair, and she's into photos, email, word docs, music etc, and mine is the hardcore games beast, so why not?" and I accepted.
SPEC HERE
David got me a 2nd hand P4 2gig (A series I think) and lets face facts, its my first P4. I'm an Athlon man normally.


From ground up: Intel 845GV chipset, and the main reason to buy it.....connectivity. I'm used to buying PCI cards and using USB hubs and having loads of danglies on my vid card.....well forget that kiddies, cos this thing has so many plug holes and ports you're gonna run out of things to plug in.

2 USB on the back, 4 on the front: that made me smile straight up, because cheap USB hubs are rocky at the best of times, with voltage worries etc.
Firewire: front (no use, wrong plug type) and rear (ah thats the one)
5.1 sound, with rear plugs for it all and front for mic, headphone and even SPDIF input on the front.
S video out
Stnd monitor out
2 Com ports (switch on/off in BIOS) for the modem and the archaic digi cam I have
mouse and keyboard plug holes.

As you can tell, I'm no techno head so thislittle reviewis gonna be "vanilla" ....plain

Its TIGHT inside. The large copper heatsink has 4 big old spring loaded screws....not that OWNS Athlons systems with clips and chipped cores.

The fan SUCKS air through the side of the fins and then blows it across the chipset heatsink, which is tiny ....and held on with a poxy wire clip and 3 tons of gunge.

Arctic Silver 3 went on after 1/2 hour trying to get the crap off and then re bending the clip to hold the heatsink on slippery Arctic3...sussed it eventually.......and Im glad I did.

Why....cos at the defualt 12 volts this fan screams it arse off....and I kid you not when you can hear it in the GARDEN when its upstairs in a bedroom. its not funny. at all.....its truly dire. According to BIOS it spins at 9800rpm. Thats not funny in the slightest. But I got brave, soldered the fan cables to the red molex cables (6 volts at a guess) and got away with it.

Its OK I guess cos its a P4 2gig and its not stressed, but forget it with a P4 3gig.....no way. PLUS.....with only about 3500rpm the mobo chipset with its tiny heatsink must have thanked its lucky stars that I had swapped the compound cos its getting a fraction of the air thatit was designed for. However, in all this, its never locked up

In the front, left, of the case are 2 tiny fans sucking air into the aperture in front of the heatsink and cooling the alloy sinks inside there.

Then I discovered the DVD drive I was gonna use (until the official burner that goes with this machine arrives) was about 5mm longer than the standard job and the front MSI panel won't go on, so its unfinished at the moment. Beware the size of your drive

Whats it like? Nice Quiet but the IMAGE QUALITY output is not ace. Its OK, and your eyes adapt, but ATI could point Intel forward I think.

Gaming? Nope. 3dmark 2001 SE at 1024x768 default settings, 1400. So dont install DoomIII. At all. Minesweeper will be fine though More realistic, knock the res down to 640x480 and have a play on last years games, but even then, keep the detail down. It'll do, but just.

But when it comes to doing what it's FOR, ie Windows Movie maker, email, photo editing, word docs, Surfage of the Interweb, and not taking up any room,its PERFECT. I love it. ANd more important, so does Sair, my long suffering girlfriend, who puts up with the constant PC building thing and the swearing

I was thinking I might not keep it long, cos Sair will still wanna use My PC for cutting Ogres heads off in Severance, and ruling godlike in Black and White, but its got 2 PCI slots spare and a Rad9000 PCI would do the job I guess.

Its staying....its found a way into my heart, all I need now is the right CD drive so the front panel can go on.
Hope this helps someone......it might even go on holidays and stuff, cos with a flat panel with built in speakers, there's no reason not too.....its tiny, but heavy.