MSI Wind barebones desktop now available to order
By Donald Melanson 
posted Aug 20th 2008 5:59PM
posted Aug 20th 2008 5:59PM
This one looks to have actually slipped into availability a few days ago but, for those that don't make visits to Newegg.com part of their daily routine, you may be interested to know that the barebones version of MSI's Wind desktop PC is now available to order for the low, low price of $139.99. That'll get you the ever-present 1.6GHz Atom processor, along with Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics, 8-channel audio, a generous six USB ports, a 4-in-1 media card reader, a CF card slot, and VGA output, but no hard drive, RAM, or optical drive. Unlike the forthcoming full-fledged Wind desktop, this one also looks to only be available in basic black, but it does at least come with a stand that'll let you use it upright.
[Via Computer Monger]
[Via Computer Monger]
My interset already knows, but thanks for the heads up.
+1
My visits to Newegg doesn't part my daily routine either...
This thing is pretty big considering it has an external power brick. The CF card slot is internal.
Do we really care about a barebone?
Whats the difference between a porcupine and a BMW ?
90% of all egotistical middle-management types don't have a porcupine?
with porcupine the pricks are on the outside.
(sorry to steal your punchline) xD
On the porcupine the pricks are on the outside...
Oh screw you guys.
I don't have a BMW in my garage.
Donald, please get a spellchecker.
I think it would be worth a $150 if they put in a VGA adapter and a TV coaxial out. Then anyone could easily buy it and hook it to a TV if they are broke. Built in Wifi/ethernet and 56K would be nice too.
Broke people don't buy HTPCs.
Is that a subliminal ad for Newegg there? Or did you just "borrow" the image from their web store?
That would be their watermark. Have you never been to Newegg, or any site for that matter?
Newegg watermarks all their pictures. So, Engadget just copied and pasted the picture, which is 100% legal as long as the watermark is not removed.
Well, the "Read" link is a redirect through a commission-sharing site. It looks like someone is making a few bucks from newegg via this article.
I always knew Engadget was in Newegg's pants.
Oh, and you clearly have no knowledge of copyright law whatsoever, Rob.
"Ride Like the Wind." Boooo, they ripped off "Break Like the Wind."
Seems to be a perfect Hackint0sh Media Center :-)
Screw Hackint0sh, get a 2GB USB stick and boot up XBMC Linux.
screw linux, im running XP.
Seems wootman is finally back from his trip to the Mojave, confused, delirious and a bit of a chip on his shoulder.
I was thinking of running WHS with 640GB HDD and 1GB of ram
If I made a computer called Wind, this would be the complete opposite of it.
Breaking: Wind?
+ 1 for a classic made original.
It's reasonably big, and from the reviews, the build quality seems average, or below average.
The one major upside to a barebones is that it makes part-plentiful people like me happy, since I already have spare DIMMs, and 3.5"/5.25" drives... Sure, the Eee Box is a slicker solution, but for $139 and random parts sitting around, it's a lot cheaper than having to shell out $349 for the Eee Box.
Cool, another beautiful Taiwanese product...
CPU/NB/SB/GMA950 chipset is the same as the Wind Netbook - so it should be a one button Hackintosh with the PB WindOSX86 ISO, no onboard audio support in OSX - desktop has no internal speakers, USB audio dongle required ($10)
Plays 720p iTMS/Trailer videos no problem - Hulu no prob (Flash10 Beta) - Handbrake took 7 hours to rip a B&W DVD to .M4V singlepass (a 700mhz G4 iMac takes 24h+, an 8core 3ghz tower 28m)
wind+spare ram+22xDVDburner+250GB 16MBcache SataDrive+tax+ship=$260
-G4iMac sold on CL -$200=$60.00=happy
performance comparable to 1st Gen C2Solo macmini +/-
This thing looks way too boxy to be called "Wind"; dunno what the deal is anyway, if you want a light & basic desktop computer, the Eee Box's design kinda makes sense, this Wind Box doesn't (yeah it can accomodate an optical drive, so what).
More like a short-lived zephyr (vapor?):
'We have found 0 items that match your search criteria "MSI Wind barebones desktop".'
Seriously, no member of Engadget's editorial team will change the "Read" link? It's a CJ tracking link! How hard is it to get a clean URL from newegg.com?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856167032
Atom 1.6GHz vs Celeron 420... what's better for a Windows Home Server box?
OBVIOUSLY, the TDP is 4W vs 35W. Otherwise, for WHS, what's better? I have a Celeron 420 lying around to build a box, but this MSI barebones would come with GbE and 2 SATA2, so it appears promising.
This does look like a decent setup to have a quiet WHS setup. The only thing that keeps me away from it is the lack of PCI-E slots, for the addition of a 4 SATA card. It would be a much better idea to build a WHS box that can take at least 4 hard drives, or even 8, so you can just slip them into the box as you get them (or as you upgrade your PC's hard drives).
With this, you still might need a power supply to power the extra drives, depending on how many watts the PS on this unit provides.
$250 gets you a dirt cheap celeron, G31 MB, and 1 Gig of ram with a decent case (with PS) that has 10 external 5.25 bays. You can, in the future, convert those to hot swap bays, and pick up another PCI-e card for another 4 SATA ports for a total of 8. Thats the route i would take. If they make Atom MB's with PCI-E expansion slots on a mini-atx board, then i would probably opt for the latter solution.
if its like the msi wind, then it should run leopard flawlessly. You could put in a cheap hd, ram and dvd-rw for under 100 bux, so 239.00 desktop that runs leopard, = win
but does it run crysis?
Too bad there's no expansion slots. At least 1 free PCI or PCI-E would be nice, even a MiniPCI would have benefit.
It has an internal CF slot on the IDE bus that supports booting in Bios and a Mini PCIExpress
Processor
- Intel® AtomTM processor 1.6 GHz on-board (TDP Max 4 W)
FSB
- CMOS, 533 MHz, 32-bit address
Chipset
- North Bridge: Intel® 945GC chipset
- South Bridge: Intel® ICH7 chipset
Memory
- DDR2 400/ 533 SDRAM (200-Pin/ 1.8 V)
- 1 DDR2 SO-DIMM slot (2 GB Max) (Non-ECC)
LAN
- Supports Gigabit Ethernet Controller for PCI ExpressTM Applications
by Realtek® RTL8111C
- Supports ACPI Power Management
- Compliant with PCI 2.2
Audio
- Chip integrated by Realtek® ALC888
- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 spec and Microsoft® Windows® Vista
Premium spec
SATA
- 2 SATAII ports by Intel® ICH7, support two SATA devices
- Supports storage and data transfers up to 3 Gb/s
On-Board Slot
- 1 mini-PCI express slot (for WiFi card or TV tuner card)
- 1 CF card slot (for CF card)
Judging from the specs I can safely say this Wind won't be blowing anyone away.
(I'm here all week - try the veal!)
that could be ideal for a low cost web server farm for a small ASP. i wouldn't want to run my database off of it, but for someone running a niche application as a ASP i bet they would serve up html and php quiet nicely. i priced one out with a gig of ram and 40gb hard drive for 207usd. for the price of a basic intel 1u dell server that would provide a good bit of failover.
I'd like to see them just drop the 5.25" bay.
MIght make a good Asterisk box. Do they make mini PCIe POTS adapter cards?
How does this compare to a Mini-ITX setup? Is there anything available that's comparable in price?
So is there room for both a HDD and an optical drive?
nice looking UMPC or Netbooks AV Docks with 80gb DVR , pizza oven, remote and wireless keyboard using Media Center extension for $299 could out sell this thing.
I just wrote up my use of one of these with XBMC + ubuntu.. and some general comments on my blog http://frugalcoder.us/ works well.
Hmm, the price seems to have gone up to $149... Odd. Still won't stop me from buying one of these. Makes for a cheap Hackintosh and file/backup server that won't take up too much space on the countertop by the router & AP.