MSI Wind CS120

The nettop category of small and low-powered desktop PCs is off to a promising if somewhat cautious start. The MSI Wind CS120 nettop ($320 street) has a feature that its peers, as well as their laptop (netbook) counterparts, often leave out: a DVD burner. This differentiates it from the ASUS Eee family (Eee Top, Eee Box, EeePC). The CS120 comes with a very energy-efficient Intel Atom processor, and it runs Windows XP. It's a potential replacement for that ten-year-old PC you have in your spare room, but make sure that you buy the CS120 as your second or third PC rather than your family's primary system, because its capabilities are pretty modest.

The MS Wind CS120 is housed in what I'd term a small-form-factor chassis: smaller than the mini towers you're used to, yet quite a bit larger than systems like the Apple Mac mini (Nvidia GeForce 9400M) and the ASUS Eee Box. The larger chassis holds a DVD burner, desktop-class 3.5-inch 160GB hard drive, and the motherboard with its Intel Atom 230 processor. The system's motherboard is compact and could have easily fit into a smaller case, but the extra room is used for components that give the CS120 an advantage over smaller nettop and desktop PCs—units that require a relatively pricey notebook-class drive (maximum capacity 500GB) and can't hold an internal DVD drive. You could easily (and economically) upgrade the CS120 to a 500GB or larger capacity desktop hard drive. The DVD drive makes installing old CD- or DVD-based store-bought software from your personal library easier as well.

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Annoyingly, the system doesn't come with a mouse or keyboard. I suspect this was done to save money, but the ASUS Eee Top all-in-one comes with one, as does the inexpensive eMachines ET1161. Both have capabilities similar to those of the CS120 and are in the same price range.

The CS120 is a quiet PC. After a quick burst of noise from the cooling fan when you power the system, the fan slows down and remains quiet while you use the system. The Atom 230 processor, which is designed for low-power usage and light-duty tasks, is rated for 4W TDP (Thermal Design Power). This means that the CPU itself uses only a few watts for most of the time it's powered on. The CS120 uses about 29W when idle and about 34W when running benchmark tests, so it's energy efficient. However, it uses a bit more power than the ASUS Eee Box nettop, which consumed 16W while idle and 18W when in action. The Eee Box has a more energy-efficient notebook-class drive and no optical drive, which explains the lower power usage. By contrast, the Apple Mac mini uses less power than the CS 120 while idling (15W), but just slightly more (34W) while running benchmark tests. Since the Mac mini is so much more capable of running benchmark tests and other programs, I'd say it's the most power efficient of the three given the workloads it can handle. The CS120, like the Eee Box, is Energy Star–rated but not EPEAT certified. Therefore, although the CS120 is miserly with power consumption, it doesn't quite merit our GreenTech Approved seal.

The 160GB hard drive has plenty of space if you're using the CS120 mainly as a Web terminal. You can download lots of Web-based photos and music: The hard drive can hold 30,000-odd MP3 files or photos. The CS120 could work as a base station for an iPod or another media player, but I'd skip watching high-definition videos, since the system isn't powerful enough for that. QuickTime files up to 480p played fine, as did Web videos from hulu.com and YouTube, but 720p and 1080p videos were jerky. In particular, 1080p files were unwatchable on the 1,920-by-1,200 display I used in testing.

The MSI Wind CS120 could run only one of our benchmark tests because of its Windows XP operating system and measly 1GB of memory. PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage require Vista; the game tests require more powerful graphics; and the Windows Media Encoder and Photoshop tests require more memory. The only test that ran was CineBench R10, and that returned a score of 820 points, very close to the 824 scored by the ASUS Eee Top 1602 all-in-one nettop, and statistically close to the Eee Box's 850 score. To put this in perspective, the Apple Mac mini uses about the same amount of electricity as the CS120 but is capable of running all the benchmark tests. But note that, the version of the Mac mini (GeForce 9400M) I tested recently costs twice as much as the CS120.

There is some good news with this system: no crapware. Many PCs from system makers like Acer, Compaq, Gateway, and HP come with a bunch of programs that you didn't ask for—or worse, try to sell you more products or services. The CS120, like the ASUS Eee Top and Box, comes without any crapware. On the other hand, all three lack any sort of Internet security or antivirus software. While the omission of a security suite is not surprising considering the CS120's price, I'd like to see at least a free antivirus package (such as AVG or avast!) preinstalled on low-end computer systems like these.

The MSI Wind CS120's low power consumption and modest computing power are similar to those of the ASUS Eee Box. If you want to burn CDs or DVDs or install software from old discs, the CS120 is clearly a better choice than the ASUS Eee Box or Top, which have no optical drive. I think the ASUS Eee Top 1602 is sexier due to its built-in monitor, and at $599 it's not much more expensive than the CS120 when you factor in the display. If you need to do work on the PC beyond office-type tasks and Web surfing, then consider moving up to a system like the Acer Aspire X1700-3700UA or Apple Mac mini (Nvidia GeForce 9400M). The Acer is about $480 and the Mac is $799, but both can run serious programs like Photoshop and both have DX10-capable 3D graphics. The CS120 is a modestly priced PC for modest needs, which may serve it well in these difficult economic times.