HP's Phenom 9500-powered Pavilion Media Center m8330f PC

Remember those tasty Phenom chips AMD loosed back on November? We sure hope so, because that's the CPU HP's relying on in its forthcoming Pavilion Media Center m8330f PC. Here's the specifics:

• 2.2GHz AMD Phenom 9500 quad-core CPU
• NVIDIA's nForce 430 chipset
• 3GB of DDR2 RAM
• Twin 320GB 7,200 RPM SATA hard drives
• HP's Personal Media Drive Bay
• LightScribe-enabled SuperMulti DVD burner
• NTSC / ATSC / FM tuners
• HP Media Center remote control with IR receiver
• Front-mounted 15-in-1 multicard reader

Beyond that, you can expect six USB 2.0 ports, a pair of FireWire connectors, audio in / out, HDMI and DVI sockets and an HP mouse / keyboard combo. Like the s3330f PC already mentioned, this too will be landing real soon with a price tag starting at $959.

[rich @ Mar 4th 2008 2:44PM]

does it really matter with a 10% reduction in performance?

[mianenwo @ Mar 21st 2008 10:51AM]

I love this system so far just got it 3 days ago, i've read online that there are issues with the dvd rom has anyone heard any info on that?

[skidoo @ Mar 26th 2008 7:20PM]

@mianenwo: I've had one for a few weeks now, using the DVD drive for maybe a total of 6 cumulative hours per week; a little burning, but mostly reading. No problems.

@Duran: Users are unlikely to ever see the consequences of this error. All new chips have errors, even Intels. And the relevant BIOS patch can be disabled (to reclaim that 10% performance hit) via the latest version of AMD's Overdrive tweaking utility:

http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_overdrive.aspx

[bcooper @ Apr 14th 2008 1:56AM]

I bought this pc about a month ago. Added a SATA encloser into the open drive bay, looks great as the encloser is black and it matches nicely with the case, almost looks like HP made it to be there. The PSU was weak @ only something like 250 Watts. I added a 500 W Coolmaster PSU and have also just added a home made braket from an electrical junction box, that now lets me add 2 more IDE drives into the case. Including HP media drive thats a total of 7 Hard drives. The MB is an Asus board. This is a very nice pc running Vista - Win XP Pro - Win Xp Pro 64 Bit. Only having problems finding the Media drivers or TV Tuner drivers for XP.

[Bobs @ Jan 3rd 2008 12:44AM]

HP makes some pretty awesome well rounded computers, all i needed to do to mine was slap a video card and some extra RAM and its now a full blown entertainment center, games, music and movies, does it all pretty well. this one comes with a remote, a pretty awesome remote it looks like.

[cortes.john @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:12AM]

stop with the HP spam plz..

[giantenemycrab @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:24AM]

Wow, more then half the front page is HP stuff. I would have thought that Engadget would have just made one, big, post.

[AMDROCKS>Fanboi @ Jan 3rd 2008 2:41AM]

Its MINE!!!!!!
Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine, MINE!
I shall HAVE IT!
Eeee heee hee hee hee hee hee...

Sorry, I had to get that out of my system.
Whoo! I feel better
Now its nice to see the phenom put to good use.
Now they just need to make a mobile version.

[DespoticWolf @ Jan 3rd 2008 4:38AM]

Seriously $959? thats pretty damn good... great price:performance ratio

[motang @ Jan 3rd 2008 1:01PM]

Awesome time to be start building my new PC with the AMD Phenom! :-D

[Louis Duran @ Jan 6th 2008 7:40PM]

It looks nice but I'd rather have it with a Intel Quad Q6600 processor to avoid the ugly Phenom TLB errata in the Phenom chip. A 10% reduction in performance to apply a BIOS patch. No thanks!