Digital Trends

Maingear Dash April 16th, 2008 | by Josh Norem

Features and Design

Basically, the Dash is a small form-factor PC that is not quite as tiny as a Shuttle system, but still much more petite than a traditional mid-tower. Its SG03 chassis is made by Silverstone, which is known for building incredibly elegant aluminum PC cases, and measures just 14.5 inches tall and a bit over 12 inches long. It’s available only in black, and has two front panels that swing open to reveal I/O ports, as well as a dual 120mm fan cage that cools the interior of the PC.

True, you can customize the Dash when ordering. But your options are limited, as Maingear has settled on an AMD platform for the machine. The manufacturer is also trying to keep the cost of the Dash relatively low, so most upgrade choices are mid-range parts that won’t break the bank. You can select whether you want a dual- or quad-core CPU though. Not to mention, that is, if you want to add a second hard drive, upgrade the videocard, tack on an LCD display and more. For reference, our review system came with a dual-core AMD Athlon X2 6000+ clocked at 3.0GHz, and 2GB of Corsair DDR2 memory.

The videocard setup on the Dash is interesting, as it uses ATI’s new hybrid Crossfire system, which pairs the motherboard’s onboard video chipset with a discrete add-in card. In this case, Maingear configured the Dash with a 512MB ATI Radeon HD 3450, which is paired up with the onboard graphics of the AMD RS780 chipset.

You can have up to two hard drives in the Dash, the biggest being 500GB. Our test unit came with a lone 320GB Western Digital drive. It also came with an integrated media reader, onboard audio and a 20X DVD-R/RW drive. You can opt for a Blu-ray burner and HD DVD-ROM as well, but it’ll run you an extra $300 USD.

The Dash is a small form-factor PC that is bigger than a Shuttle, but tinier than a mid-tower.

Use and Testing

When we first saw the Dash’s box, we did a double-take. “How small is this PC?” we couldn’t help thinking. And after removing the wrapping, we weren’t just surprised by how tiny it was, but also how light. We easily lifted the system up and out of the box and set it down underneath our desk, though it could easily fit on top too. Inside the box we also found a Maingear t-shirt and a binder with the word Dash on its cover. 

The binder is a nifty touch and we wish all vendors would use them. The included binder even had a thank you letter from Maingear (a nice touch) followed by two pages of QA checkboxes such as “installed latest video card drivers,” and so forth. The only problem was a bunch of the boxes weren’t check marked and remained empty, such as “Is front panel USB on?” This leads us to believe they weren’t checked, which sort of defeats the purpose of showing customers all this initial groundwork was done.

Second, there’s a page titled “Initial setup of your system,” but the info and pictures are ancient and depict PS2 mouse and keyboard connectors along with info on how to connect your videocard to a hardware MPEG-2 decoder. (We haven’t seen one of those in at least five years, if not longer.) It’d be better if it were up-to-date, and explained all the various ports and connectors on the back and front of the machine. After all, this is supposed to be a system for newbies and beginners, and they need as much hand-holding as possible.

Finally, section four of the manual is titled, “SLI info,” but this system doesn’t use SLI; it uses Crossfire technology, making the fact that the manual specifically states that this is an NVIDIA feature and tells the user how to enable it even stranger. We’re not trying to be too harsh on what is obviously an ancillary item, but it’s odd that the company would go to all the trouble of showing customers its eye for detail, then let so many little things fall through the cracks. In other words, the manual is not specific to this model of PC, and it way too generic to be a good guide.