The H663 media centre PC is the first Gigabyte PC through our Labs’ doors since the company decided to move beyond components and sell full computer systems in Australia. It gets off to a good start: the power supply is external, meaning that a major source of heat, noise and bulk is instantly removed from the chassis. As a result, the chassis has one of the smallest profiles we’ve seen: it’s just 70mm high (60mm without feet) and 325mm deep; however, it is rather wide at 435mm.
Inside there are still three cooling fans: one for the CPU, one beneath the hard disk, and one beneath the CPU’s heatsink — they’re very quiet but you will hear a mild hum in a quiet room. There’s practically no room for upgrading though — the one hard disk bay is occupied by a 250GB Hitachi model. This will prove limiting for many people who will have to add external storage.
Connectivity options at the rear are inferior to Asus’ Asteio with there being only two USB ports, one FireWire, three audio jacks (not enough to support the integrated 7.1 audio), Gigabit Ethernet and optical S/PDIF. DVI, VGA and S-Video outputs cater for video. There’s no eSATA, HDMI or Component interfaces, which is again inferior the Asus. At the front are mini-FireWire, two USB and two media card slots which support SD/MMC/MS/CF formats. Ideally, we’d like to see these hidden behind a flap, but the H663 is far from ugly. The mono digital display makes it look more like a living-room piece of AV equipment than a computer, and the buttons beneath offer good control over Windows Media Center Edition’s (MCE) interface. TV can be recorded via the single DVICO tuner (which supports High Definition).
The system is also Viiv compatible — useful for when Intel’s digital home technology starts to come good. A DVD-RAM drive is included, along with a standard MCE remote and proprietary wireless keyboard. The latter is rather plasticy with small keys — it isn’t a patch on the Asteio’s, but it’s adequate.
Gigabyte uses an ageing 3GHz Pentium D 930 processor which creates a last-gen feel to this system. This, combined with a single, 1GB stick of RAM, generated a score of 0.89 in our benchmarks — easily enough to keep Media Center running along smoothly.
All in all it’s not a bad media centre, and its 70mm height may prove attractive. But we’re disappointed because it’s not as well specified as the previously A-Listed Pioneer DreamVision which is six months old — an age in this industry. The one-year RTB warranty is also measly, but the real killer is Asus’ bleeding-edge Asteio, which offers more features, a better specification, better components and peripherals for a lower price.
