Accessories

Great if used as is, ok if you modify
Out of the box this is a great machine. The case is elegant and quiet. 3GB of ram is the optimal configuration for a box running 32-bit vista premium (4GB can't all be accessed). The TV card/Windows media center intergration is flawless. There are a decent about of usb ports, and I have yet to find anything to tax the cpu. The graphics card is a little bit of a letdown. The graphics card is a low end geForce 8400GS. While the rest of the pc's components manage a Windows Experience index of 4.4, the card lowers it to 3.5. Its fine for general use, but you'll only run into that issue if you plan to run a lot of high end games (e.g. crysis).

The only real down side of this machine is that it attempts to guide you down the path of more hp products by embedding a couple of ports for hp portable drives. The front of the machine has two slots avaiable. If you've ever looked for these drives, you'll quickly realize that they're more expensive than any external usb harddrive but are less compatible (read: will only work with another hp machine with the same ports). In addition to being a bad idea, the ports take up crucial real estate needed when trying to add additional drives or access memory modules. Bad HP. This isn't a deal breaker (I love mine), but something to be wary of. Overall a great system.

Definitely a great Computer
It's awesome computer with many excellent features.. I really love it... the wireless mouse and keyboard, the integrated tv card,etc.

HP Pavilion Elite M9160F Desktop PC
There are several reasons why I've only given this computer three stars.

1. It doesn't come with a Vista 64 install disk. This makes it impossible to set it up as a Raid0. It's already set up in a non-raid configuration when you get it, and without a Vista 64 disk, you're stuck.

2. It's under-powered. This thing should really have at least a 500 watt power supply. This makes upgrading a chore, since you WILL have to swap out the power supply.

3. HD DVD: can you say Betamax?

4. The case is too small, and it's further cramped with those proprietary portable media bays. Who is actually going to buy one of those overpriced things when they can buy a 1 terrabyte external hard drive for less money?

5. The hard drives keep parking their heads (clicking) unless you turn off the power saving features.

6. It will be difficult to swap out the optical drives without buying them from HP because of their non-standard appearance.

Other than that, it's a fast quiet computer. Once you go quad-core, you won't go back. I can watch a movie, whilst running a virus check, whilst compiling a C program without any lag. Also, it's pointless having a 64 bit Operating system unless you're going to take advantage of the ability to install 8 gigabytes of RAM!

Wonderful P.C.
Just connected this new HP P.C. from Amazon. It is wonderful! The speed is great and the memory, 720 GB, will definately solve our previous memory problems. We did a lot of homework in searching for the perfect home business P.C. and we are pleased to have found it!

Very capable system.
I purchased the 9160F and have had it for approximately a month now and I have been very pleased. The Q6700 processor is very quick. As far as gaming, the Nvidia 8600GT is a good place to start, but if you want to run crysis on high settings you probably want to look into a system with the 8800 series. Overall this computer is a good value for the included hardware.