Product Reviews

There are plenty of factors to consider when buying a media centre PC: storage space, processing power and AV outputs chief among them. But for many, noise will be the crucial consideration - the best media centre system in the world is useless if it keeps you awake at night.

With this in mind, the Tranquil AVA3-D5 is completely fanless, with the heat-generating processor attached to a bulky internal heatpipe arrangement, in turn connected to a large heatsink on the right-hand side of the system. This means the only components in the system capable of generating any noise are the hard disk and optical drive, both of which are audible only while being made to work particularly hard.

The AVA3-D5's silent chassis will be familiar to stalwarts of PC Pro's media centre group tests; we saw the AVA Media Center a year-and-a-half ago, and the chassis hasn't changed externally. There are some important changes inside, though. The Pentium M of the old version has been replaced by a significantly more powerful Intel Core 2 Duo T7200, with each core running at 2GHz. Our review system came with a slower T5500 installed, which ran to 0.89 in our application benchmarks - you can expect a little more performance from a retail system. RAM is adequate at 1GB, but gamers should note Intel's ageing graphics chip isn't capable of running modern 3D games.

The hard disk also benefits from an upgrade, going from 160GB to 250GB. That's a far more suitable size for a media centre, although we suspect many will want even more - as it stands, you'll fit in over 150 hours of DVR-MS format recorded TV, but that's all too quickly done. The chassis does at least have space for another hard disk directly under the included one, so those who find themselves seriously constrained

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can always install another unit. It's also possible to have a 500GB unit installed from the start for an extra £62 (£73 inc VAT), or two 500GB disks for £146 (£172 inc VAT). You can also archive anything you're desperate to keep via the slot-loading optical drive, which will write to all kinds of disc including DVD-RAM.

When we saw the original AVA Media Center, we complained about the trifling selection of video ports, but the AVA3 manages to go one worse by ditching the DVI output. This means there are no digital ports anywhere - simply a D-SUB connection and a 7-pin video-out port that connects to the bundled component and composite video converter. This is adequate for now: component video is enough for 1080p content, and as the AVA3 doesn't have a Blu-ray or HD DVD drive there's no pressing need for HDCP encryption. But it's hardly future-proof, and we'd rather see at least one digital connector. TV reception itself is provided by two digital tuners on a single card.

The rest of the machine's internals are clean and tidy. This is partly down to the Commell LV-677DC mini-ITX motherboard, as well as the external power supply. This isn't ideal for those who want to keep clutter to a minimum, but it does mean there's no need for extra cooling inside the chassis. The motherboard is the same model as in the Nexus Psile Media Center PC, and we still like it. There's a spare SATA port, as well as a free DIMM socket for a future RAM upgrade. There's also a mini-PCI slot free, with another occupied by the 802.11b/g wireless card.

So, there's plenty to recommend the AVA3-D5. It's fast, nearly completely silent and will easily fit underneath a TV, provided the glossy white finish suits your decor. The basic specifications are good, and adding a new hard disk won't prove too much of a job for most users. We also appreciate the twin digital tuners, despite the fact they're glued into the chassis. Price is something of a concern, though. The Asus Asteio D22 DAV costs around £100 less, but also has a dedicated 3D card, plus digital outputs in the shape of both DVI and HDMI. The only obvious downside is its single TV tuner. If silence is your absolute top priority, however, the Tranquil clearly beats the Asus (which emits a low hum) and deserves a place on your shortlist - just beware of its shortcomings.