Asus Essentio CG5290- BP007 –  For All The Gaming Freaks

Sum n substance:

Thumbs up: Won’t burn a hole in your pocket. Phenomenonal functioning in day to day software as well as an excellent 3-D gaming desktop.

Thumbs down: The motherboard and the power supply fail to support upgrades. No Blu-ray drive.

Inside the trunk: Processor: Intel Core i7 I7-920 / 2.66 GHz  , Ram:   9 GB / 24 GB(max) DDR3 SDRAM , OS Provided: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Edition SP1, OS Preinstalled: Windows Vista,  Software: Adobe Reader 8.0 , Nero 8 Essentials , Microsoft Works 9.0, graphics controller: PCI Express 2.0 x16 – Plug-in card, Networking: 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, Color: gray.

Price range: $1,199.99.

The whiz-kid speaks: The market for gaming supporting desktops is kind of huge, plus to find one which is not that heavy on the pocket is most of the times a task. The launch of Asus Essentio CG5290-BP007 has definitely made this daunting task a lot easier.

Razzle-Dazzle: Comparing the amazingly awesome gaming and software support features, the design of the desktop is kind of drab and boring. Not exactly for the ones who are looking out for a desktop which will set tongues wagging. The case is huge considering the less demanding specifications. The coupling of the units along with chassis of the system is more analytical, aesthetic design notwithstanding. The design of the case isn’t all that appalling but its out-of-tune angles and slanted front ends make it a bit bulky.

Inside Dope:

The Asus Essentio CG5290- BP007 surely attracts a lot of attention… all thanks to its pricing and the features it has to offer. This system is basically made for all the gaming aficionados. It surely lacks the killer polishing of all its competitors, but the gaming appeal along with the reasonable price tag that it offers surely makes up for it. Talking technically, the huge case does provide for more airflow which is a plus point.It is also the only desktop in the back-to-school range which comes with an Intel core i7 chip. It comes along with a dynamic NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 graphics card which is the one of the most outstanding feature offered.

Talking about the graphics card, though Dell’s Studio XPS 450 and HP’s Pavilion Elite e9180t  have almost the same pricing they fall short on the graphics options. Unlike its competitor from Dell, the Asus Essentio doesn’t have a blu-ray drive, it only has a DVD burner.

Talking about the gaming aspects, the Dell is fast but the Asus is faster indeed. It holds about 61- frames/sec on our Far Cry 2 test which is quite outstanding compared to its competitors. Most of the PC titles can be comfortably played on the Asus on a 24- inch display with minimal image quality settings enabled. The PCI express graphics card slot which the Asus Essentio has to offer is not all that useful considering a 500 watt power supply. The Asus offers a more robust 650 watt power supply but if your thinking of installing a new power supply just to get the advantage of the graphics card its certainly not worth the extra effort, because you ll lose out on the money saving factor. Along with the extra graphics card slot it also offers a standard PCI slot, a second hard drive and 6 ram slots all of which are currently filled. As far as external data transfers are concerned, the Asus has a few more 2.0 USB ports and both of them have FireWire 400 and eSATA inputs. It surely is amongst the best mainstream gaming deals. The online hours support is almost negligible, and the phone hours also don’t have much to offer.

Nitty- Gritty: It surely offers one of the best gaming features with killer graphics. It is also one of the fastest gaming PC’s on the shelves at the moment. Unlike its boutique competitors it surely lacks a lot in the glamour department but that’s the least they could offer in that particular price range, I guess. It fits really well in the bare bones category of gaming PC’s. So for those really looking out for a no-frills Gaming PC this would surely be the best option.

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