PlayTech Windows Home Server Reviewed in New Zealand PCWorld

Tue, Apr 29, 2008

Helping New Zealand rank well at number 2 on the global WHS World Cup standings are a wide range of home servers from local system builders.

One of these systems, the PlayTech Home Server which is a AMD Athlon X2 4600+ processor based system, is reviewed in the May issue of New Zealand ‘s PC World. The review is authored by Sam Wood, a member of the WGS community and author of the great WHS Disk Management add-in. The review is two pages long but doesn’t appear to be available online, a short extract is included below (the extract covers an area we are all familiar with along with the rating on the system).

Sam does comment positively on many of the features of this well spec’d system from local NZ System Builder PlayTech who have chosen to use the Silverstone SG01 case but does point out “a major letdown with the Chieftec SNT-2131 SATA hot-swap expansion bay handles…… being light and flimsy” and adds that “the built in 80mm fan still rivals the original NVIDIA slot coolers in overall noise production.”

Full details of the system can be found on Playtech’s web site.

Please post your comments and experience with this system in the WGS forums.

Specifications
CPU	AMD Athlon X2 4600+ Dual Core 2.4GHz Socket AM2 Processor
Operating System	Microsoft Windows Home Server
Memory	2GB DDR2-667 Memory
Motherboard	AMD 690G chipset with AMD LIVE
Hard Drive 1	500GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 16MB Cache
Hard Drive 2	3 x Hotswap front loading HDD bays to expand up to 3.5TB max
Graphics	ATI X1250
Audio	High-Definition 5.1 Performance Audio
Optical Drive	N/A
Network	Intergrated 10/100/1000 GB Network port
Power Supply	Silverstone ST50F 500W ATX2.0 12cm fan low noise Power Supply
Case	Silverstone SG01 Aluminum Case Black
Front Connection	USB2.0 x4 , 1394×1, Mic inx1, Line outx1
Back Connection	USB2.0 x4, Firewire x1, Audio out, Parallel x1, HDMI x1, DVI x1, VGA x 1
Dimensions	263 mm (W) x 216 mm (H) x 393 mm (D)
Estimate Assembly Time	3 to 5 Working Days
Warranty	1 Year Onsite Pickup & Return Warranty ( Upgrade to 3 Years for NZ$199 incl.GST – approx US$156)
Price	NZ$1499 incl. GST – approx US$1178