HP Pavilion p7-1030

The HP Pavilion p7-1030 ($580 street) is an entry-level/mid-range desktop PC, with the kind of parts and performance normally seen in higher-priced desktops. The p7-1030's Intel Core i3 processor and 8GB of RAM may not offer professional-grade multimedia or gaming muscle, but it's a great system for the household, especially if you're looking to replace a six- or seven-year-old system.

Design and Features
The p7-1030 is a mid-tower PC with a black aluminum chassis and a plastic front panel. The panel has the same glossy black finish we've seen on other entry-level desktops from HP, like the HP Pavilion p7-1047cb ($799 list, 4 stars). The front panel has a sliding cover that hides two USB 2.0 ports and headphone and microphone jacks. At the top of the panel, there's a multimedia card reader (SD, MMC, MS/Pro, xD, and Compact Flash), as well as the power button. Below the card reader is a DVD +/- RW drive. A second 5.25-inch drive bay sits just below it, empty, and ready for an upgrade. On the back of the tower there are four additional USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and three audio jacks: microphone in, audio-in, and audio-out.

The p7-1030 offers VGA and DVI video outputs, for hooking the desktop up to an external monitor or display?you could even utilize both outputs simultaneously for a dual-monitor setup. You won't be able to use your HDTV as a monitor, though, as there's no HDMI connection available. This exemption is usually the case when vendors want to keep the cost of a system low. Though it may not come with a monitor, the p7-1030 does include a wired USB keyboard and wired optical mouse. The keyboard is surprisingly comfortable, if perhaps on the mushy side, and its low-profile design is attractive. The mouse is also passable for a bundled device, but you'll want to pick up a new keyboard and mouse, if only to switch to something wireless that won't take up two of the six available USB ports.

Internally, the p7-1030 comes equipped with a spacious 1TB 7,200rpm hard drive, which is the same size and speed of the drive found in the Editors' Choice Lenovo IdeaCentre K330-11691AU ($599.99 list, 4 stars). A PCIe Mini card provides 802.11n Wi-Fi, which means you won't have to awkwardly find a place near your router or run long Ethernet cables to connect to the Web. There's a little room to grow in this mid-tower chassis. In addition to the aforementioned unoccupied 5.25-inch drive bay, you will also find one available PCI Express x16 slot and three open PCI Express x1 slots. A 250-watt power supply means you'll be limited to adding an entry-level graphics card, but even something as basic as the AMD Radeon HD 6450 would provide an improvement in terms of graphics and gaming capability. Because the system comes with 8GB of DDR3 memory, which occupies both DIMM slots, upgrading memory will mean removing at least one of the memory sticks. That said, it's hard to think of you needing more than 8GB at this point.

The p7-1030 comes with several programs pre-installed on the hard drive. Some of these are useful, like a starter version of Microsoft Office 2010, a 30-day trial for Norton Online Backup, and a 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2011, but we've seen longer trial periods on competing systems, like the 90-day trial on the Lenovo K330-11691AU. The p7-1030 also comes with HP LinkUp, a program that lets you access other Windows 7 computers on the same local network. Even computers from other manufacturers can download the LinkUp software to share files. It's like having your own local cloud. Desktop links to websites like Netflix and Hulu aren't a problem, but you may be irritated by the multiple screen reading programs from Blio, Kobo, PDF Complete, and Zinio. You'll definitely want to remove extras like toolbars from Bing and Google.

Performance
The p7-1030 is outfitted with a 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i3-2100 processor, which behaves like a quad-core CPU thanks to Intel's Hyper-Threading technology. Paired with 8GB of memory, twice that of the Dell Inspiron i620-228NBK ($479.99 list, 4 stars), the p7-1030 scored 2,536 points in PCMark 7 performance tests, outpacing the Dell i620-228NBK by 241 points. . In Cinebench R11.5 tests, the p7-1030 matched the speeds produced by other systems with the same processor, like the Dell i620-228NBK (2.99) and Lenovo K330-11691AU (2.98). It was, however, left behind by the Core i5-equipped HP p7-1047cb (4.15) and Asus Essentio CM1730-05 ($569.99, 3 stars) (5.19) with its six-core AMD processor.

The p7-1030 is also a capable desktop when it comes to media creation. In our Handbrake test, it finished encoding our video file in 1 minute 40 seconds, whereas the AMD-equipped Asus CM1730-05 took over 2 minutes to complete the task (2:03). The Dell i620-228NBK, on the other hand, just missed the 1:40 mark by 2 seconds. The p7-1030 finished Photoshop CS5 in 3:46. The only comparative system to produce better scores was the Core i5-equipped HP p7-1047cb, which produced times of 1:29 in Handbrake and 3:31 in Photoshop.

The p7-1030's integrated Intel graphics won't let you get too far in terms of 3D gaming; for the heavy lifting, a dedicated graphics card is necessary. The desktop wouldn't even run our 3DMark 11 graphics benchmark test, and without support for DirectX 11, it wouldn't run our Lost Planet 2 test either. The only test we could run was Crysis (DirectX 10), which scored an unplayable 13 frames per second at medium resolution and detail settings. You'll have to upgrade to a discrete graphics card to play anything more demanding than World of Warcraft at low settings.

As entry-level systems go, the HP Pavilion p7-1030 offers a surprisingly potent collection of hardware, with processing power and storage space that should satisfy entry-level shoppers. Features like 1TB of storage space and a full-fledged Intel Core i3 processor make it a compelling choice for anyone on a budget. Shoppers can buy it with confidence, but bargain hunters will note that the HP Pavilion p7-1047cb includes a monitor, and the Editors' Choice Dell Inspiron i620-228NBK offers a similar package for about $100 less.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
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