We can’t help but think that this is a gaming PC in a media box's clothing. It’s packed to the brim with some very powerful hardware, along with Windows Media Center Edition. Even though it’s the size of a standard PC case, it doesn’t look out of place in the living room.

Unfortunately, it’s the fan noise that stops it from slipping gracefully beneath the TV. At the centre of the machine is the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, which easily deals with HDTV and powers through games. The trade off for this kind of power is it's still too noisy for inconspicuous living room use -- despite the sound-proofing inside the box. The seven fans that cool the processor, SLI graphics cards, motherboard and case make enough noise that you’ll want to turn the Maestro off instead of leaving it on to record programs.

Even though you can use it as a very capable gaming machine, its main purpose should be recording and playing back video via the twin AVer hybrid HDTV tuners. There’s 500 GB of storage space available, courtesy of a pair of 250GB drives in RAID. The TV tuners gave us no problems when watching and recording analogue and digital TV signals out of the box.

Sound is handled by an onboard AC97 chip, which has both optical and coaxial connections. Behind a fold down flap there are 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks which, when used, will break the connection to whatever is connected at the back. There's also a card reader behind the flap, as well as two USB and one FireWire ports. There’s Gigabit Ethernet onboard but no wireless connectivity included.

It’s well built and full of nice touches, such as the backlit IR remote and front panel display, which shows all the information provided by Media Center when the on-screen display is hidden.

The overarching problem is that the components just don’t match its purpose. If you want to play fast paced 3D shooters in the lounge room, this is worth considering, but we have a feeling that anyone considering this would haul their gaming PC into the lounge room instead.