Acer AST180

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Acer AST180-UD400A

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 3GB DDRII 250GB SATA Integrated GeForce 6100 2xPCI 2xPCIe (one full size and one small- x16 and x?) Integrated 10/100/1000

XFX Nvidia GeForce 8500GT

For someone who has built their own for the last 10 years, the price had to be right to by a packaged product and I've been happy with the decision, no stability issues and the fan is quiet. Computer is in the family room and we can read with nothing else running and not hear the computer- big plus for someone running the core in their main media room.

The 6100 would be fine EXCEPT there isn't a TV-out option. For those with VGA in on their TV's this would be fine, but I do not... hence the 8500.

PROBLEMS: Power supply is lacking, at best. 245W, 4 SATA power connectors, 1 molex, 1 fdd and handles 20 or 24 pin ATX MB requirements.

I dropped in a 500W PS, 2GB DDRII (originally had 1 stick of 1GB) and a new video card.

I'm running UI2 with alpha on the core and 1 MD, 1 UI2 w/o alpha and 1 UI1 at the same time. Haven't jumped to gigabit, 100 full duplex is enough.

FYI- The computer came with Vista Home Premium. Apparently OEM's don't have to supply Vista installation DVD (wouldn't use them anyways) but Acer supplies a program that allows you to backup the system effectively creating a Vista installation DVD...

(8.15.08) Update: I had more problems with this motherboard. After every cold boot, the BIOS would be reset (time clock, boot order, etc). A brand new backup battery didn't fix the problem. Acer said that for ~$440 they would fix it, I bought a new MB instead. Probably just a bad MB- THESE WERE JUST MY EXPERIENCES AND TO BE TAKEN AS SUCH!