CG8350 Essentio Series Desktop PC
We’ve just taken custody of the CG8350 desktop from ASUS here at Tech in Style towers, and as you can see from the pics below, it’s a looker. Now, we’ve been talking a lot about portable devices and laptops recently, but as always, if you’re into sheer PC power then desktops is obviously where it’s at.
Big side vents for good cooling
The CG8350 is aimed at people who want to do many things on one stylish unit. It’s a capable multimedia, productivity and gaming PC, and ships with some of the newest technology. The one we played around with came with a quad-core Intel Core i7 2600 CPU and a DX11-certified NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 graphics card with 1GB of GDDR5 video memory, a potent mix for gamers. The CG8350 also supports up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM and the motherboard (H67 chipset) offers perks like all-solid state capacitors and the exclusive ASUS Energy Processing Unit chip, which moderates component power draw to land you lower electric bills. The hard drive is a 1TB 7,200rpm model, and we also got a nice Blu-ray combo drive in the mix ― a definite plus since it’s HD or bust for us!
ASUS is including its new EFI BIOS with the CG8350, which adds flexible mouse and icon controls to your trusty old BIOS experience. You can thus even set up boot priorities with simple drag and drop mechanics, just like any Windows application. That’s quite nice for users who want to tinker a little more with the workings of their desktop.
The CG8350 also features SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 for extra-fast file transfers and data connectivity, and while on the subject of interfaces, take a look at the case design, which we find very attractive.
It's all about connections
The smooth and glossy frontend is one thing with its neat optical drive/expansion bay panels, but we especially appreciated the generous I/O cluster on top of the case, which is angled for easier access should you place this PC under your desk. There’s even a convenient “tray” depression on the top part of the case to safely place portable devices.
We always said a good PC should reflect you
Otherwise, the curvy but sturdy case strikes quite a pose, and note the large grills on both sides for better cooling.
Under the spotlight!
The CG8350 is available now, but check with your local or favorite online retailer for specific details as availability may vary, and do share with us your desktop stories: what do you think? Are desktops still the way to go in an era of increasingly powerful portables? Let us know in the comments below.