Sony VAIO VGC-RB64G Desktop PC (Intel Pentium D Processor 920, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW Drive) | List Price: $1,129.99
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Brand: Sony
Binding: Personal Computers
Features: - Multimedia-centric desktop PC with built-in TV tuner; 2.8 GHz Pentium D dual-core processor (4 MB total L2 cache)
- 250 GB hard drive, 1 GB RAM (2 GB max), multi-format/dual-layer DVD+/-RW drive
- Six USB 2.0, two FireWire, VGA, S-Video in, DVI out, subwoofer in, parallel port
- ATI Radeon x300 video/graphics card with 128 MB of video memory; 10/100 Ethernet, 56K modem
- Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Update Rollup 2)
Hardware, thumbs up; recovery disk, thumbs down [Posted on 2006-05-20]
A few things for the careful PC buyer.
After a week, I can say the quality of the hardware is excellent. WD hard drive, Pioneer DVD Rom and DVD+-R/W (yes, there are TWO optical drives), Intel motherboard.
Good, quiet cooling system.
Excellent ATI graphics card.
Has four memory slots, two of which are filled with 512MB chips. To upgrade (to the max), you must fill the two empty slots with 512MB also. Easy to install, as the layout inside the case is very clean and sensible.
Only hardware negative is the lack of free slots. The space-saver motherboard has three, and they are all filled up. Yep. The good news is one slot has the modem, which can be tossed as far as I'm concerned.
Now, for the software. Some bonehead at Sony decided to make a very restrictive recovery disk that allows no options whatsoever for partitioning the hard drive. In other words, it comes as one big 250GB C: drive and cannot be partitioned by any of the software that Sony supplies. Sony tech support recommends a third party partitioning application (but won't name a brand). This can be verified on their tech support site for this model.
Also, if you do try to install your own WinXP Pro, GOOD LUCK, especially with the drivers glued stubbornly into the moronic recovery disk.
My solution is to just get a second hard drive to partition for the virtual memory and storage of files I'll access often, leaving the supplied drive for system, major and core programs, and storage of rarely used data. The second hard drive, hopefully, can be partitioned using the Windows XP SP2, Media Center Edition, which was included.
NOTE: hard drive is SATA type. Won't take the old ribbon-cable IDE type. That's ok--SATA can be much faster.
Documentation for the system is minimal.
The system flies (especially with 2GB of memory). The video is smooth and fast, great for handling large photos in Photoshop, game play, and DVD play back. Haven't tried the Click to DVD, but noted that it recommended the maximum amount of memory to run properly.
Overall, it is a good deal for the power and quality, but it would be hard to recommend this to those who like to partition their hard drives, need empty slots, or want to load their own version of Windows.
Another plus is that tech support answers quickly and will give the right info if the right questions are asked. Quite friendly, I found.
For the typical home or business user, this is a dynamite piece of equipment.
Fast and reliable dual core computer [Posted on 2006-06-19]
Like previous reviewer, I am satisfied with this product overall except for the facts (1) I need to buy recovery CD/DVD from sony web sites unless DIY the CD/DVD by instruction, (2) I need to upgrade to XP Pro in order to add the system to network domain.
As a software engineer, I bought this computer because I wanted to write software with parallel processing. (Hyperthreading PCs are not really improving its speed with multithreading, but dual core PCs are) There are d-core PCs from other blands such as HP and Dell. Upgrading anything for HP PC was nightmare in my experience, and Dell d-core PCs are lot more expensive than this computer. So I chose Sony RB64G and I am happy with the decision so far.
As advertused, this computer is very quite as long as room temperature is cool enough. But expect it noisy like air-conditioner whenever room temperature is high such as 85-90.
Pleasant surprise I found was that upgrading memory from 1G to 2G costs about $100 for this computer. This computer has Samsung M378T6553CZ3-CD5 DDR2-533 512MB memory, which usually sells for about $50. I bought two from ewiz.com for $103. As you might know, upgrading 1G memory usually costs $100-200 more. With easy installation of two of them into the PC, I have amazingly fast and affordable parallel machine at my home. One thing I want to mention is that for some reason, Sony documentation or web site does not tell you what kind of memory chip they are using for this computer. So I had to open my PC and look inside to figure it out myself. Maybe Sony does not like people to know they are using Samsung memory? who knows.
One problem I found with this computer is Microsoft Media Center 2005 installed on this computer. This version of windows provides software so-called media center so you can watch/record TV/DVD and so on, which is nice. But you have to know you cannot add this windows system into windows network domain! Due to this reason, you cannot access this computer from other computer via network; you can access network from this computer though. So I don't know why MS calls this OS "Center" - it should be "Isolated PC for media." I am upgrading it to Windows XP Pro.
Hope this helps future buyers.
Professional & Reliable! [Posted on 2006-07-17]
I was waiting tp purchase a good PC jumping from my old P4-1.7 512SDRam, 30GB :(
I kept researching and looking around, from ALien ware to TOshiba because im looking for a brand here until i came to Sony, i know sony are expensive with there vaio products but i took a deeper look into there desktops and found this VGC-RB64G.
I chose this model because i needed to have MS-MCE edition with an included built in TV tuner and other features, the features are clear no need listing.
No my experience with this Desktop after this long intro.
the PC is fast, reliable, smooth, quite, elegant, and professional, the ram inside is as mentioned by a previuos reviewer Samsung, i upgraded to 2GB you have 2-DDR2 slots waiting for your ram, go for 2x512 DDR2 rams i bought different rams not samsung and they work great just be careful to be compatible with 280 pins and mhz etc...
The mother board comes with the x300 occupying the pci-express slot so forget using that or replace it, you have the modem occupying a PCI slot i removed that and placed my wireless PCI, i know there is USB :/ and i removed the PCI sony tv tuner and replaced it with the haupagge PVB-500MCE card check it out its cool (dual Tv tuner) and finally i purchased the 19inch LCD xBrite (silver) it hooked through the x300 DVI port. with this PC completing the sony family and i began rocking Quake-4 & doom3 and fear on this PC.
bottom line, its a great PC that will keep me rocking for another 2-years.
Thanks
TOA
A very good choice,... [Posted on 2008-02-11]
I bought this Sony about 2 yrs ago and it's WONDERFUL! I highly rec'mend this anyone and would but again from AmaZon! Esp with free shipping. Sure beat the Q's at the dept store!!
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