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Polywell Minibox 780G-9950

PCWorld Rating

3.0
3.0 / 5 - PCWorld, May 4, 2009
0 User Reviews Be the First to Review »

Pros

  • Small, stable form factor
  • More expandable than the average mini PC

Cons

  • Larger than the average mini PC

Bottom Line

An attractive, compact PC with a medium level of expandability.


Images (click to enlarge)

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Polywell Minibox 780G-9950

Polywell MiniBox 780G-9950 Power Desktop PC

Polywell Minibox 780G-9950 Review, by Jon L. Jacobi August 21, 2008

Polywell's MiniBox ($1599 as of February 1, 2010) bridges the gap between the nonexpandable micro units such as those that Shuttle specializes in, and a full-size, fully upgradable PC.

At 9 inches high, 11 inches wide, and 14 inches deep, the MiniBox fits in many places a tower wouldn't. Even so, it still offers enough interior space to accommodate a full-featured micro-ATX Gigabyte MA78GPM-DS2H motherboard, two free 5.25-inch drive bays (one external), a 16x PCIe slot, and two PCI slots. Its width also makes for a physically stable system--great for the living room or a child's first PC. Oh, and it even has a handle that folds out from the front of the system so you can carry the unit around like a 1980s boom box.

The MiniBox model's moniker informs us that it's strictly an AMD AM2+ system, starting with a 780G chip set, continuing with the latest 2.6-GHz Phenom X4 9950 CPU, and following through with a very fast ATI 4870 graphics card. The result of this relatively low-priced ($2350 as of August 8, 2008) combination, with some help from its RAID 0 tandem of 10,000-rpm Western Digital VelociRaptor hard drives, is a level of performance we don't generally see in a small PC--namely, a more-than-competent WorldBench score of 110.

The 4870 card also made for some fast gaming frame rates; it averaged a very playable 135 frames per second in Doom 3 running at 1280 by 1024 with antialiasing enabled. If you're willing to sacrifice some frames per second playing games, you can also configure a MiniBox without the 4870 and save a few bucks.

The MiniBox 780G-9950 system we tested is also a nice choice as a multimedia PC. This price includes a 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2253BW wide-screen LCD monitor, and the PC itself has a Blu-ray/HD DVD drive on board with HDMI output (with HDCP copy protection) on the rear panel.

--Jon L. Jacobi

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PCWorld Lab Results
How We Test Desktops »

Overall Rating

WorldBench 6 Score110
WorldBench 6 RatingGood

Office Productivity

Web Browsing247 seconds (lower is better)
Office Suite Use350 seconds (lower is better)
File Compression255 seconds (lower is better)

Content Creation

Image Editing438 seconds (lower is better)
GPU Graphics Rendering364 seconds (lower is better)
CPU Graphics Rendering380 seconds (lower is better)
Video Encoding228 seconds (lower is better)
DVD Burning210 seconds (lower is better)
Video Editing240 seconds (lower is better)

Multitasking

World Bench 6 Multitasking281

Gaming

Overall Graphics ScoreFair
Unreal Tournament 3 Medium 1024x768115.35 Frames per second (higher is better)
Unreal Tournament 3 Medium 1680x1050115.8 Frames per second (higher is better)
Unreal Tournament 3 Medium 1920x1200115.95 Frames per second (higher is better)
Unreal Tournament 3 Medium 2560x160083.29 Frames per second (higher is better)
Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 1024x76871.63 Frames per second (higher is better)
Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 1680x105073.76 Frames per second (higher is better)
Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 1920x120073.05 Frames per second (higher is better)
Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 2560x160066.05 Frames per second (higher is better)
Doom 3 with AA, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit135.27 Frames per second (higher is better)
Doom 3 with AA, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit134.83 Frames per second (higher is better)
Doom 3, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit135.9 Frames per second (higher is better)
Doom 3, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit134.63 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars High 2560x160059.3 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars High 1920x120074.97 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars High 1680x105075.13 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars High 1024x76875.77 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 2560x160060.53 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 1920x120075.6 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 1680x105075.53 Frames per second (higher is better)
Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 1024x76876.07 Frames per second (higher is better)
Far Cry with AA, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit152.72 Frames per second (higher is better)
Far Cry with AA, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit155.18 Frames per second (higher is better)
Far Cry, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit153.83 Frames per second (higher is better)
Far Cry, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit155.1 Frames per second (higher is better)

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