Trash Can PC on a BUDGET - HP Wave
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,241 words · ~6 min read
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you know it's a funny thing it's like apple does something and then everyone
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else goes hm that's a pretty good idea
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and does the same thing 3 years later for a fraction of the cost meet the
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latest member of the club the HP wave a
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trash can PC starting at 600 bucks
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enjoy VR without obstacles with Zotac
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vrgo backpack which features a GTX 1070
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and Intel Core i7 processor learn more at the link
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below so what exactly is this thing well
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hp's slogan is a desktop PC designed to
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be seen so we'll mark it on its looks
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first at 9 and 1/4 in high and close to
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7 in wide in a rounded triangular shape
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it's very small for a desktop with this much Hardware inside and features a gray
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fabric wrap around the outside that looks really modern but doesn't draw
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unnecessary attention that is assuming you can find somewhere to stash the
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unsightly power brick so it is pretty
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but can it perform actually the specs
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are not bad our core i7 model Sports a
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power optimized lifestyle CPU whatever that means which
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basically trades some performance for
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lower heat and power consumption it's got a good mix of solid state and
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spinning storage and a functional if not
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4K AAA gaming ready GPU curiously hp's
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website says up to 16 gigs of RAM but as
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far as we can tell there's no way to order such a beast so you might have to
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upgrade it with one of those empty slots yourself noise is probably the biggest
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downside of the wave which Peaks at 50
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DBS and a whopping 86° on the CPU under
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load though that in itself isn't the
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biggest problem even short bursts of
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activity like installing a program make the fan wind up then wind back down and
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this irregular fluctuation in the sound quality makes it very hard for the wave
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to blend in with background
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noise which isn't to say there isn't any reason you couldn't try to drown it out
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in a bit of an unusual move HP has integrated a speaker into the tower it
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sounds best at about half volume which is loud enough for background music at a
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small dinner party but not for movie watching and sports half decent base
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although It suffers as sounds get more complex everything I am by Kanye sounds
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right at home but busier tracks such as LCD sound systems Daft Punk is playing
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at my house get muddled and a bit messy
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a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that the speaker's output Grill is
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also the exhaust vent for the cooling solution to look inside the wave all we
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needed to do was remove three screws and from here the RAM and 3 and 1/2 in
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storage hard drive are easily accessed for upgrades
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but an m.2 SSD swap would be much more
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difficult totally disassembled we can see why the thermal performance was a
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little lackluster system cooling is handled by these copper heat pipes that
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lead to a small heat sink with a single
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blower style fan for airf flow even compared to a stock Intel heat sink it's
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a little anemic looking and it's responsible for the video card as well
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not that it's a super for powerful one or anything the wave isn't made for
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gaming and it shows but I still give HP
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credit for including more than onboard Graphics rise of the Tomb Raider on the
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lowest settings at 720p ran at a
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playable 40fps and Esports games like Dota csgo
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or OverWatch will run fine as long as you manage your expectations and you
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don't try to play them with the included wireless keyboard and mouse they're
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functional and it's NE neat that they don't require any setup thanks to the
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receiver that's zip tied to an internal USB port but they're possibly actually
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worse than what you'd expect for included peripherals in a starting at
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599 computer I'd replace the keyboard immediately if I intended to do any
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serious word processing work and the mouse's unusual kind of Sonic the
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Hedgehog profile shape didn't fit the hand of anyone that I showed it to so
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yeah but while at this point in the
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video you might be thinking gee he sure
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doesn't like this thing very much truthfully I wasn't that stoked on it
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until I tried to find something that out competes it and if you want a reasonably
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high performance little machine thermals
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and Acoustics aside it's very functional
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it powered through productivity image editing watching 4K content and even
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light video work and it does it without taking up a lot of space or looking ugly
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in your apartment or your studio for competing trash can PCS there's really
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not much else out there the Mac Pro is in a totally different class using
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workstation Hardware at five times the price the MSI Vortex is similarly uh
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much more expensive and the extra $700
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you'd be giving Samsung for an art PC
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seems to be going towards an aluminum chassis and Easy Storage expansion and
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for that kind of money you could swap a 10 tbte Seagate Enterprise hard drive
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into the wave and still have enough left over for 436 chicken McNuggets even
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looking Beyond trash cans it's very competitive a similarly speced laptop
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will cost you an additional 200 bucks which is enough to cover a monitor and a
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replacement keyboard for the wave and many mini PCS were either much less
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powerful or clearly made with gaming in mind sacrificing some processor speed
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and generally looking well let's just say
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gamery do you use Amazon we do we think
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they're great we've got links to Amazon purchase pages in almost every video
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description that we create and there's more than just the ability to buy pretty
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much anything they've also got Amazon Prime which is $99 annually and gives
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you access to lots of cool stuff so Prime now is free 2hour delivery or
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scheduled delivery on over 10,000 items from groceries to electronics Prime
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video is unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes twitch Prime gives you
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exclusive discounts on physical games and new releases and for Twitch TV users
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who link their account they get ad free viewing and one free subscribe per month
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and that is all in addition to the whole normal thing which is free 2day or same
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day delivery to specific zip codes so
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check out the link to where to sign up for prime or shop at Amazon in the video
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below so thanks for watching guys you can dislike or like you can get
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subscribed woo yeah get subscribed you can also check out where to buy the
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stuff we featured at the link in the video description and our t-shirt store
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and our community Forum while you're down there now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering
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what to watch next so check out another one of our videos woo click on it it'll
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