Polywell MiniBox2 939NP

CNET editors' review

You can take a number of paths when jumping into the world of Media Center PCs. You could pair component-style box with your A/V receiver, or if your home-theater cabinet is full, you could stick a traditional desktop chassis in a closet or an office and access its contents via a Media Center extender. There's also the option of a small-form-factor (SFF) case, which you can hide (or display proudly) among your living-room components. We've seen SFF Media Center PCs from Shuttle and Polywell that have attempted--with mixed results--to squeeze a fully functional Media Center PC into a tiny case. Polywell's latest effort is the MiniBox2 939NP, a $1,899 SFF Media Center PC that offers a dual-core AMD processor, a surprising amount of storage, and decent room for upgrades. Despite its use of the integrated Nvidia GeForce 6150 graphics chipset, it provides the muscle needed for its intended multimedia use.

Like the first MiniBox PC we reviewed earlier this year, the MiniBox2 939NP's mini-ATX case is larger than your typical SFF PC and measures 13 inches high, 11 inches wide, and 16.8 inches deep. Even with its added dimensions, you'll find the maneuvering tight. Two optical drives, a double-layer DVD burner, a CD-RW drive, and two vertically mounted hard drives are crammed in, along with a TV tuner card and a 500-watt power supply. Getting to the two free RAM slots seems impossible through the thicket of somewhat untidy wires inside the case. To be fair, no one ever said fitting 500GB of storage, two optical drives, and a TV tuner into an SFF case would be easy.

It's a feat to pack so many features into a small case, but it also causes a problem with acoustics, an important consideration if the system is going to be a member of future movie nights in your home. Three sizable fans are needed to cool the dense electronics, and they generate more noise than we would have liked. Overall, the MiniBox2 939NP was considerably louder than other living room PCs we've tested, such as the Niveus Denali and the S1Digital Media Center, but no more so than the average desktop.

We found the Polywell MiniBox2 939NP too noisy for a cramped New York City apartment, and we banished it to our home office closet. Using a Media Center extender, we were easily able to view the PC's content on our living-room TV, but since Media Center extenders are fairly picky about the kind of video files they'll play, most users will want to hook the system up directly to their home-theater setups. For example, we were unable to play AVI or VOB files, which prevented us from accessing our centralized movie collection without connecting the PC directly to our home theater. Unfortunately, the MiniBox2 939NP lacks many of the A/V connections we've seen on some of the high-end entertainment PCs we've looked at. Video output options are limited to DVI and VGA ports, no S-Video or component outs. Audio outputs are basic onboard 5.1 sound, but we would like to see discrete stereo RCA outs. Most home-theater TVs have DVI inputs, but users of older analog sets might be out of luck.

A dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPU powers the Polywell MiniBox2 939NP, and the chip is an excellent choice for a multitasking multimedia machine, where the PC is called on to play or record media files while performing other tasks. In CNET Labs' SysMark 2004 benchmarks, it easily beat Dell's compact XPS 200 Media Center, which uses a dual-core Pentium D 830, by 23 percent. Shuttle's XPC 8300mc small-form-factor Media Center with a single-core Pentium 4 530 was 34 percent slower. These results should come as no surprise if you've read our CPU prizefight feature.

The integrated Nvidia GeForce 6150 graphics aren't going to push many polygons in the latest 3D games. We were able to get playable frame rates in older titles at a moderate resolution, but a Media Center system such as this is clearly not designed with gamers in mind. Image quality from the dual-tuner TV tuner card was acceptable, displaying the same soft image quality you'd get from any PC TV tuner.

Extras such as a media card reader, a Media Center remote, and a wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard set are welcome, and along with the bundled 19-inch Hyundai LCD and the Logitech X-530 5.1 speakers, you get a fully contained entertainment setup out of the box, which is useful, considering the limited connection options. Software includes the excellent PowerDVD program and Nero 7 Ultra Edition for CD/DVD burning. The Media Center OS handles the other entertainment chores.

Polywell's support isn't on a par with that of major PC vendors, such as Dell or HP, or that of high-end boutiques, such as Alienware. A standard one-year warranty is included, and to its credit, Polywell is up front about manning its tech support phone line only during regular business hours. The rest of the time, you'll be sent to a third-party phone-support bank. Online support is minimal at best, with only a very brief FAQ, covering a few random topics, and phone and e-mail contact information.

Application performance
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

BAPCo SysMark 2004 rating

SysMark 2004 Internet-content-creation rating

SysMark 2004 office-productivity rating

Polywell MiniBox2 939NP (2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 1,024MB DDR SDRAM, 400MHz)

232 

267 

202 

Dell XPS 200 (3.0GHz Intel Pentium D 830, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz)

189 

236 

151 

Sony VAIO VGC-VA11G (3.2GHz Intel P4 640, 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz)

181 

208 

157 

HP Digital Entertainment Center z555 (3.0GHz Intel P4 530, 512MB DDR SDRAM, 400MHz)

174 

192 

158 

Shuttle XPC G5 8300mc (3.0GHz Intel P4 530, 512MB DDR SDRAM, 400MHz)

173 

195 

153 

Multimedia tests
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Sorenson Squeeze 4 video encoding test (in seconds)

Adobe Photoshop CS test (in seconds)

Apple iTunes 4.7.1.30 MP3 encoding test (in seconds)

Cyberpower Gamer Ultra 8500 SE (2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 1,024MB DDR SDRAM, 400MHz)

264 

167 

134 

Polywell MiniBox2 939NP (2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 1,024MB DDR SDRAM, 400MHz)

264 

173 

133 

Dell XPS 200 (3.0GHz Intel Pentium D 830, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz)

252 

251 

142 

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:
Cyberpower Gamer Ultra 8500 SE
Windows XP Home SP2; 2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+; Nvidia Nforce 4 SLI chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6600 (PCIe); Maxtor 6L200M0 200GB 7,200rpm SATA

Dell XPS 200
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2; 3.0GHz Intel Pentium D 830, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; Intel 945G chipset; 224MB (shared) integrated Intel 950G; Maxtor 6L160M0 160GB 7,200rpm SATA

HP Digital Entertainment Center z555
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 3.0GHz Intel P4 530; Intel 915G chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 128MB Nvidia GeForce 6600 (PCIe); Maxtor 6B250S0 250GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA

Polywell MiniBox2 939NP
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 2.0GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+; Nvidia Nforce 430 chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 256MB integrated Nvidia GeForce 6150; two WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 250GB 7,200rpm SATA; integrated Nvidia Nforce 4 RAID class controller (RAID 0)

Shuttle XPC G5 8300mc
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 3.0GHz Intel P4 530; Intel 915G chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6600 (PCIe); WDC WD2500JD-98HBB0 250GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA

Sony VAIO VGC-VA11G
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005; 3.2GHz Intel P4 640; ATI Radeon RC410M chipset; 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 256MB ATI Radeon X700 (PCIe); (2) Maxtor 6L160M0 160GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA