HP Pavilion p6754y review
Design and Internals
For an average desktop computer from HP, the p6754y is a good looking one. The design makes the tower look good and there is not much clutter between all of the ports and drive bays. The power button is on the top of the tower and in the front, the memory card reader sits on top of the optical drive and the expansion bay. Below the expansion bay, sliding down a bit would show two USB ports, a sound in port, and a sound output port.
In the back of the tower, the motherboard is unusually placed upside down, I guess? The motherboard placement is usual in newer HP computers. The ports in the back are pretty basic with a VGA and DVI outputs, a bunch of audio inputs and outputs, four USB ports, an Ethernet port, and a digital audio port. Another port is the antennae connection for the WiFi card. You also have the power supply which is rated for 250 watt, which is very surprising since the computer has a quad-core Athlon II X4 processor.
It only takes one screw to remove the door that covers the components. Inside, you will notice a lot of wiring that would require a reorganization when upgrading components especially the graphics card RAM. The hard drive is prominently mounted, showing off its labels and the Seagate logo. The RAM is upgrade able to 16GB but you would have to be careful since it uses different types in two of the four slots which means you should print out some diagram before upgrading RAM. The computer is pretty upgrade able as long as you swap out the 250 watt power supply for something higher. There should be enough room to add a good graphics card into the system.
Specs:
AMD Athlon II X4 640 processor
4 GB RAM
1 TB Seagate Hard Drive
Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics
2.4 GHz wireless b/g/n network card
DVD burner
Performance
With the specifications shown above, the HP Pavilion p6754y moves Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10 smoothly with only few hiccups when loading up 60 tabs of web pages simultaneously in the later operating system. Not that Ubuntu is heftier, but it still is fast and does its job for a modern PC. When compared to other machines I have used with single core Pentiums and Semprons powering Windows XP, the Pavilion p6754y is blistering fast especially when multitasking. Compared to other PCs with multi-core processors, there is little to no difference in ordinary tasks. Going back to Ubuntu, the computer easily powers on and off and recovers itself quickly if programs crash or freeze. Gaming performance should be fine when most games are set at medium or lower. Using high graphics settings on can add some strain to the integrated graphics card which will noticeably slow down a gaming experience. People that play games that require more graphics power may want to look for a good discrete graphics card. Web browsing is fast and the computer makes a slow DSL connection feel decently fast. The computer plays music and videos with little to no problems at all and is fast at loading them. The computer is not very noisy and it feels quiet when there is other noise such as music playing while using the computer.
Conclusion
The HP Pavilion p6754y is a decent computer for the value at around $500, only needing a few upgrades if your a PC gamer. It is a great computer for doing tasks like web browsing, word processors, and playing music and videos and can be able to do them all at the same time. My few complaints are the limited number of USB ports and a tiny 250 watt power supply. One minor complaint such as the font panel can show scratches specifically the chrome looking part. The HP Pavilion p6754y is a good computer with only few personal complaints.
