HP D330 Pentium 4 Machine:
Using the power offered by today's processors, even mundane business machines become powerful beasts, with the D330's mid-range 2.4GHz Pentium 4 chewing through office tasks with ease. Backed up by 256MB of PC2700 DDR RAM, there's headroom for more intensive work too, as witnessed by our 2D benchmark score of 1.29. The 40GB of hard disk storage will be sufficient for most office lifetimes, although with just a CD-ROM on-board, local backup options
are limited.
The desktop case can be stood on its side to reduce the desk space it takes up, but considering there's a microATX board inside it's surprising the case is still the same size as a standard ATX system. It also means there's a fair amount of dead space at the front and middle of the chassis.
Access is otherwise simple, with captive thumbscrews being easy to remove when taking off the lid. Everything from the CPU heatsink and fan to the hard disk are quickly changeable, thanks to some excellent tool-less design. Even the three spare PCI slots employ an ingenious and robust securing system, with the same going for the vacant AGP slot. The processor is upgradable too, supporting Pentium 4Cs with Hyper-Threading up to 3.2GHz. There's a spare 3.5in bay for an extra hard disk, and a 5.25in bay to add an extra optical drive if needed.
