ASUS Pundit P1-PH1

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Fast
Design	Excellent
Manufacturer Support	Excellent
Ease of use	Easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Cheap,Upgradeale, Easy to Setup, Compact, Consealed slots
Disadvantages:	onboard graphics, Product registration, Upgradeability

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I have been using my Asus technologies Pundit P1-PH1 of just over a year and a half now without any problems
I wanted to build a computer without the hastle and wanted to get a better spec than what was available on the high street or from companies such as Dell

The P1-PH1 is a small compact barebones unit which you can configure and spec to your level or budget, Asus have many barebones units available but I chose this one as it was small compact and did not take up much room on a desk. It is similar to some of the philips units available from pc world which my dad has, another reason for buying this model
Size is 25cm (H) 37cm(D) 10cm(W)

Spec is to your liking upto the maximum allowable
Built in freatures include
Memory card readers for the following (Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, SD Memory Card, CompactFlash Card)
Ethernet and fast ethernet, Firewire Connector
2 front and 2 rear USB2.0 Ports
5.1 Surround sound
Socket 775 Processor socket

The unit is easy to build once you have all your components ready additional items are Hard Disc Drive, Memory, Pentium 4 or Pentium Celeron processor DVD or CD Rom drive
OK to my spec
Asus Case in black including cooling fan
Intel P4 3.4 (Max processor is a 3.8Mhz) but for the extra money at thhe time price and performance wise i was not going to see the extra £120.00 put to good use
2 x 1Gb of 665 ddr2 ram maximum you can fit
Western Digital 250Gb HDD SATA 150 16mb cache 7200rpm
Lite-On DVD+/-RW with light scribe
It has onboard graphics so its not for the hardcore gamer but there are 2 expansion slots which you could use to fit a better graphics card but it is fine for me
Fan is Q-Fan which is automatically adjusted to the load on the processor and is whisper quiet

Construction is simple
Remove the outer case by removing 2 screws and sliding the case backwards and place to one side
Remove the HDD and DVD cage so you can access the cooling fan screws, remove fan and fit processor and put heat paste (included) on processor to ensure heat disipation close the clamp to secure processor and fit fan over securing it
The memory is fitted by clicking it in position in the slots of which there are 2 taking ddr2 240pin ram upto 1GB each
Fit the DVD in the cage making sure it is the right way around and also fit the HDD fit the power and information cables for the HDD and DVD drives. Fit cage into main body of the case and secure with screws removed earlier
Check all connections are secure and refit outer case replace screws and its finished. Well the construcion is.
Next you connect it to your monitor and connect power cables, mouse and keyboard etc
Switch it on and it fires up. Stick in your windows disc format the HDD and let windows setup fully
Then power it down turn on again and install the Asus drivers for graphics and sound all of which are simple to do and there you have it a powerful computer you have built yourself
All bios settings are automatic and if you goto the Asus website there are bios updates available for some models

Asus probe is included it is a user facility to let you manage your computer within set perameters ie set fan threshold and if the fan is below this level an alarm sounds. It is good as it can be set for cpu temp and motherboard temp too and it accessable from a button on the taskbar

Cost
Case £100.00 Excit IT
Processor £120.00 Ebay
DVD Drive £ 32.00 Excite IT
HDD £ 75.00 Excite IT
Ram £ 40.00 Each 1GB Ebay
Total £397.00

Since then I have fitted a Asus TV dvb-T digitacl card so I can watch tv and download video footage from video cameras onto the HDD
Although this may sound expensive now for this system when I built it an equivalent shop purchased model was £800-1200