Media playback, as expected, was flawless in our tests. The HPE-390t's Radeon 5770 had no problem churning through any of our 1080p material on our test living room's 46-inch plasma display. More important, though, the machine is fairly quiet: Fans and components whirr audibly as the system is creeping to life, but once Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) is up and running, the PC is all but undetectable.

The bundled keyboard and mouse are wireless, a feature that's always appreciated. Their implementation was a bit awkward, however. In lieu of a dongle, you get a puck-shaped receiver on a cable. The connectivity range was fine, but a dongle (or built-in Bluetooth connectivity, as we've seen on some media-centric all-in-ones) would have cut down on some of the cable clutter. Another concern: The devices consistently needed a bit of time to reconnect after entering a battery-saving standby mode. Though they were never unresponsive for more than a few seconds, it was still an annoyance.

The media remote bundled with the PC was also a little disappointing. Its IR receiver requires a fair degree of precision--stray too far from the ideal pointing angle, and it fails to register. You can imagine how bothersome that might be when you're parked on the couch.

Nitpicks aside, HP's Pavilion Elite HPE-390t is a great option for anyone who wants raw power but finds the performance category's pricey behemoths off-putting. It managed to eke out strong general and gaming scores in our tests, and it's nestled at a comfortable (for the category) price point. It may not top the charts, but at just over $2000 in a class whose leaders cost at least double that amount, it doesn't really need to.