Polywell Products
Polywell MiniBox 900VX-2800
Product Short Spec:
Processor:
AMD Athlon 64 (1.8 GHz)
RAM installed:
512 MB DDR SDRAM
Hard drive:
160 GB Standard
Display (projector) diagonal size:
15 in
OS provided:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
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Polywell Poly 430AM2
Positives:
Dual-core Socket AM2 processor; component video outputs; plenty of hard drive space.
Negatives:
Plain looking; one empty PCI slot is blocked; you can spend less and still get a PC that will get you through four years of school.
Facts:
It's at the expensive end of the back-to-school market, but the Polywell 430AM2 offers a lot of hard drive space and a decent set of components that should keep you going for several semesters to come.
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Polywell Poly 590SLI2-FX62
Positives:
Athlon FX-62 chip helps power the system to new benchmark heights; reasonably priced; plenty of room for expansion; long warranty.
Negatives:
Uninspiring design; might be eclipsed very soon by new Intel CPUs; real top-of-the-line requires quad-SLI.
Facts:
With AMD's latest chipset and top-of-the-line CPU hidden inside a plain-Jane case, the Polywell Poly 950SLI2 doesn't look the part of the owner of the fastest benchmark scores we've ever seen. Be warned, however, it may not hold the title for long.
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Polywell Poly 690G-5200
Positives:
A fair price for the hardware.
Negatives:
The 64-bit Windows Vista limits your options for adding peripherals and introduces the potential for compatibility headaches; integrated graphics chip sucks system memory, hindering overall performance.
Facts:
By submitting this system with 64-bit Windows Vista, Polywell opens it up to driver conflicts, application incompatibility, and underwhelming performance on memory intensive tasks. We're not sure what the benefits are, either. You can configure it with 32-bit Windows, and improve on the hardware to bring its performance up, but at that point it loses its price advantage. Pass this one by.
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Polywell Poly i570SLI
Positives:
Competitive configuration for the price; gigantic fan keeps collective noise down; CPU overclocking bolsters performance.
Negatives:
Motherboard only has two memory slots; boring design.
Facts:
It's not particularly attractive, and the motherboard limits you to two memory modules, but Polywell's Poly i570SLI PC is a capable gaming box at a fair price. Its CPU is even overclocked to give it that extra edge. We don't recommend it if you anticipate needing strong vendor support, but if you're a confident PC user looking for a good deal, it's a solid, no-frills choice.
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Polywell Poly i680SLI (quad-core)
Positives:
Potent GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card and Intel quad-core CPU blow through current games and are poised for next-gen gaming excellence; decent amount of expansion room; price tag won't bankrupt you as much as typical high-end PC's would.
Negatives:
Boring chassis with a few silly or superfluous design elements; needs a bigger power supply if you want to add a second graphics card.
Facts:
We expect that we'll see better-looking and better-thought-out PCs with Nvidia's new GeForce 8800 GTX graphics card inside, but Polywell gets the distinction of having the first PC in our Labs with this next-gen part. And while its visuals and its power supply could use some attention, its price-performance ratio is hard to beat.
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