Tranquil PC AVA2-D4 review

Gallery

Verdict:

The AVA2-D4 is expensive, but it's a silent and well-engineered system. Unfortunately, its audio capabilities are limited and the outdated chipset makes it too slow to play high-definition video downloads.

Review Date: 17 Mar 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Chris Finnamore

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Tranquil PC's AVA2-D4 is a beautifully designed and silent system, but its outdated chipset and modest processor limit its media capabilities.

FEATURES

The AVA2-D4 is the slimmest PC is the group and its case is passively cooled. The right-hand side is covered with cooling fins, and both the power supply and processor heat sink do without fans. The front of the chassis is bare apart from the power switch and optical drive, and the rear is minimalist too. There is room for D-sub, DVI, S-video and composite video outputs, but the AVA2-D4 has only line-out sockets for 5.1 audio and not the 7.1 audio present on most other systems. There is an optical S/PDIF out, so you can always connect the AVA2 to a surround-sound decoder.

If you want to record to the AVA2-D4's 250GB hard disk, you are limited to using the S-video or RF inputs on the twin digital tuner cards. Having two digital cards means you can record two digital channels at once, though.

The AVA2-D4 is designed purely for Media Center use, as it comes with a remote control but no keyboard. A wireless keyboard is a £45 optional extra, but we feel it should be included given the price of the system.

PERFORMANCE

Although the AVA2-D4 has the same 1.73GHz Intel Pentium M processor as Shuttle's M1000, it is based on the Intel i845G chipset. This older chipset hampered its performance in the video encoding test, where it came last behind the Shuttle with a score of 68.

However, the AVA2-D4 comes with a gigabyte of RAM, so its scores in the image-manipulation and multi-task tests were much better. Unfortunately, the outdated chipset meant the AVA2-D4 had more trouble than the M1000 when playing our high-definition video files. It often lost lip sync and dropped frames.

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