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HP Pavilion Elite HPE-390t

07.08.2010
The HP Pavilion Elite HPE-390t, which sits atop the company's lineup, delivers commanding speed and functionality without breaking the bank. It might not unseat the performance category's leaders, but priced at a respectable $2050 (as of August 6, 2010), it brings six-core power and robust media functionality to the average user.

The HPE-390t is outfitted with Intel's flagship performance CPU, the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X Extreme Edition processor. Storage space is a healthy 1.5TB, about average for the category. Those components, teamed up with 9GB of DDR3 RAM, helped the HPE-390t earn a fairly impressive WorldBench 6 score of 160.

Other machines have fared better in our tests. The ($7000) delivered a score of 181, the ($4500) offered up a mark of 175, and the ($4200) reached a score of 171. Though a machine's price tag isn't a factor in our reviews process, it's worth noting that HP's desktop system packs a $1000 processor for far less than these three competitors, and it doesn't cut too many corners.

Of course, there's quite a bit more to a machine than just raw performance. CyberPower's Black Pearl might cost twice as much, but it compensates for that by bundling three ATI Radeon HD5870 graphics cards, as compared to the HPE-390t's single ATI Radeon 5770 board. The results speak for themselves: On our Unreal Tournament 3 graphics benchmark, the Black Pearl delivered 193.9 frames per second (at 2560-by-1600-pixel resolution, highest quality). The HPE-390t achieved 67 fps--an impressive score in its own right, but one of the clearest signs of what that extra $2000 buys you.

The Black Pearl also sports a spacious, modular chassis. Boutique vendors using off-the-shelf parts typically choose cases with plenty of room to maneuver. Ideally offering tool-free access, these (generally large) enclosures have intricate cable-management systems, and lots of space for their owners to add drives and components over the life of the PC.

The stock HP Pavilion chassis isn't nearly as generous. It's smaller than that of a standard performance machine, which is sure to please buyers intimidated by hulking towers. The trade-off is having less space inside to tinker. The pricier performance desktops we review are generally upgrade-friendly, with cavernous interiors and a bevy of bays for components, or reservoirs for liquid-cooling apparatuses. The HPE-390t has room enough for you to upgrade your RAM or add an extra hard drive and optical drive, but the internal wiring and close quarters make any work uncomfortable at best.