Gigabyte MIB T5140 review

Clever new ideas are thin on the ground, with most products we see being of an evolutionary ilk, so we were immediately taken with Gigabyte's innovative MIB T5140. It's a slimline desktop PC case with the addition of a built-in monitor stand, so you can build your own all-in-one PC.

The stand has a VESA mount at the top, which supports both 75mm and 100mm standards. This means you can mount most monitors between 19in and 23in. Any monitor with a glossy black finish will match the front of the chassis. We mounted a particularly heavy 22in monitor with no problems. The arm is sprung, making it easy to adjust the monitor's height. The bottom of the mount is about 300mm from the desktop, adding an ergonomically pleasing 100mm to the height of most monitors. A simple hole in the mount helps keep your cabling routed neatly behind the stand.

The mount slots into the top of the case, and is fixed in place by a pair of thumbscrews. You have to remove it before you can open the case. Inside, there's space for a Mini-ITX motherboard; you can get one with an integrated dual-core Atom 330 processor for £65, but one with an HD-capable Nvidia Ion chipset is nearer £100. Alternatively, Mini-ITX boards with an LGA 775 socket cost around £60, so you could use a Core 2 Duo-based chip. We used an old Celeron Dual Core E1200. However, the external power supply is only rated at 60W, so you couldn't fit a quad-core processor, and even the fastest dual-core chips could cause problems.

There's enough space inside the case for the standard low-profile LGA 775 cooler - or any passive cooler we've seen on an Atom-based board. A vent above the processor lets hot air out of the case. There are also vents across the left- hand end, where the motherboard is situated. At the right-hand end is a mount for adding a 60mm fan, though we didn't find this necessary in testing.

There's a removable drive bay for two 3.5in drives, one of which is external (so you can add a memory card reader), plus space for a 5.25in optical drive. Internally, there are power connectors for four SATA and two Molex devices. Both external drive bays are hidden by a flap, to keep everything neat.

By placing a monitor on top of any slimline desktop case, you could create a similar effect. However, the MIB T5140 is a far neater proposition, and looks great with the right monitor attached. The design of the case - both internally and externally - is good, and it's reasonably priced, too.It's the ideal basis for building your own all-in-one computer.

Author: Seth Barton