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FIC Condor Small Form Factor Reviewed
VL writes "A gamer's best friend? That's FIC's catch phrase, and we take them to task in our latest review. 'FIC put together a nice little barebone PC, but missed on some important features that enthusiasts have come to expect. While it's no slouch in gaming, it does not stand out in the performance department which is a shame as the design itself was well thought out.'"
looks to me like a humidifier
All the torrents you could want.
Pros: Good performance, easy to assemble a system, better than average expansion options. Quiet.
Cons: No BIOS tweaks possible. Mere 200W PSU. Poor onboard audio.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
On another topic, I think that it is rather foolish to order a specialty PC and not be able to repair it yourself, or have the money to buy totally new parts. It's similar to owning an old car from a now defunct manufacturer. Cusomers shouldn't expect the same service as if they owned an uncustomized computer from a large manufacturer.
_____
Thank you.
Who cares if it's a nightmare to upgrade/repair?
Computers are heading in the same direction all household appliances have gone: fixed-function and disposable. Ignoring all the environmental concerns and whatnot, this is inevitable. It wasn't really all that long ago when a TV owner was expected to replace tubes in their TV as casually as we replace ink cartridges in our printers. Now TVs end up in the trash when the power switch breaks.
Using the "mom test", I've had my mom add memory and swap cards/drives in her computer, and she's recently even done it without my direction or assistance. Non-technical people can do this stuff, it's just that they don't want to. Most people just want their computer to work, and, when it doesn't they want to be able to buy a cheap replacement because their time is too valuable to bother fixing it.
I'm not advocating this trend, but it's obviously the choice of the bulk of consumers. You are going to be fighting a losing battle if you try to stop this.
I have a mini system I put together from parts. It's a nice enough case (an off-brand minitower I got from computer geeks) but it - like just about every single mini system I've seen - has these damn doors over the ports on the front. The cdr door isn't too bad (except that it also means you have to remove the front of the drawer on the drive thus leaving the noiseproofing gasket out of the picture, which means going back four years to listening to jet engine takeoffs every time you use a DVD or CD) but the doors on the connectors mean your stuck with two choices:
1) never use the front panel jacks
2) use the front panel jacks and risk damage to the cheap plastic doors thus ensuring your nice looking system eventually looks like ass.
Of course, 1) isn't foolproof either, since it's incredibly easy to break on of these things off at the hinges just by laying it in the car seat wrong.
I can't stand those cubes with the jacks sticking out the front like some afterthought, either - but would it really be so hard to stick all those jacks in a nice even row at the bottom of the case behind a black rubber or felt gasket? Maybe use those black nylon fibers like at the end of vacuum cleaner dust attachments. It would look nice, be unbreakable, and only slightly more cumbersome to connect (Where's the hole? I know it's here somewhere...")
Anything other than flimsy plastic doors would be an improvement... especially at 650 fucking dollars! Yeesh!
I hate to be cynical, but all these review sites "like"/"don't like" products based on:
...and a zillion other things unrelated to actual product quality or suitability. Meanwhile, of course, they're all getting played by the companies, who reward good reviews by bumping those sites up on the list of who gets Hot Product A in what order.
Which is why this has no business being on the front page. Put it in games.slashdot.org and make it a non-frontpage for slashdot.org....or something...
You can damn well bet that if they wanted to 'like' the unit, the PSU figures would not have been mentioned, the onboard audio problems dismissed as moot because "we all install soundblaster audigy boards anyway", so on etc. You get the idea. The review remains technically accurate, but the bias clearly swings.
Please help metamoderate.
When the first SFF (small form factor) machines came out, I was interested, but they were very limited with low-rent technology. That's not the case anymore. You want a PCI Express, or the latest Athlon-64, or maybe you want a steady-as-a-rock Intel 865 chipset and matching P4? There are well built SFF machines that fit the bill, and all you give up are PCI slots.
My latest gaming machine is a Soltek 3401 (review at http://www.sfftech.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=464) with what was at the time the highest-end stuff, a P4 at 3 Ghz, a Radeon 9800XT, and to get a real gameport, a SB Audigy in the only PCI slot, along with two optical drives. The resulting machine is rock-steady, even overclocked and running 24/7 and playing all the latest games. Plus, it is a snap to travel to conventions with - it came with its own backback and I can check it in as a carry on. Bringing it to clients' is no problem either.
This computer is the quietest I've ever had (save for the fanless, hard driveless Apple //e) and extremely reliable. When at conventions, it stays just as fast and delivers gameplay just as good as any of those modded, neon-lit monsters other folks bring, but at 1/3 the size.
Though this FIC board doesn't seem to be very overclockable, most Shuttles and Solteks are. And don't worry about SFF power supplies - they are designed to be efficient and work well despite their low wattage ratings. Just try some high-end cards and be prepared to see them work fine.
If the idea of an SFF machine interests you, check out the reviews and ask around at the forums of http://www.sfftech.com/. I'm glad I did.