Pros And Cons
Pros:
- Two 5.25" slots;
- Two 3.5" slots;
- 7.1 sound;
- Easy installation of hardware;
- Edges ground down;
- Space-saving cable routing.
Cons:
- Positioning of the AGP and PCI slots;
- System fan can be clearly heard if warm;
- No card reader or display.
Temperature Measurements
Brief Conclusion
The only barebone PC that we tested for the large AMD64 community is the Soltek QBic EQ3801A. Other manufacturers like Epox, Iwill or Uneec, which also offer barebones for the AMD64 processor, didn't want to give us any test models. The barebone is equipped with three different sizes of temperature-controlled fans, which are good at eliminating the thermal power loss from the hardware. The noise level for this is 42 dB(A), which would be pleasantly quiet if the fans didn't continuously fluctuate. However, when the fans are running at full speed, the sound level quickly increases to 60 dB(A), which can be very disturbing for a quiet room.
Fated to be noisemakers: A longing for the quiet after the storm
