HP Envy 700-030qe has the components that matter

YOU’D NEVER MISTAKE cookie-cutter design of the HP Envy 700-030qe (go.pcworld.com/envy700) for a custom-built rig from a boutique PC builder; but it has the components—including a powerful Intel Core
i7-4770 CPU—to run with that crowd, despite its much lower price.

HP also gives this PC 12GB of DDR3/1600 memory, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 645 video card, and a 256GB solid-state drive. Its cooling system, however, is negligible: The chassis is equipped with just a single fan.

The Envy tore through our demanding Desktop WorldBench 8.1 benchmark suite, posting a very good score of 352. In contrast, the considerably more expensive Digital Storm Virtue (reviewed in this issue) earned a WorldBench 8.1 score of 399.

My enthusiasm for the Envy 700-030qe waned a bit on the gaming front. Its Nvidia GeForce GTX 645 is a decidedly middle-of-the-road video card—an OEM model that has slightly better specs than the GeForce GTX 650 that you’ll find at retail.

The GTX 645 doesn’t support Nvidia’s SLI dual-GPU technology, and its motherboard has just one PCIe x16 slot anyway. The Envy 700-030qe’s dinky 460-watt power supply unit might get in the way of a
future video card upgrade; but for $70 more, you can opt for a 600-watt PSU instead.

In Dirt Showdown, at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 and visual quality at Ultra, the Envy turned in an unplayable frame rate of 21 frames per second. Digital Storm’s Virtue, outfitted with a top-of-the-line Nvidia
GeForce GTX 780 card, churned out 86 fps at the same settings. But when we dialed the resolution down to 1024 by 768 and reduced visual quality to Low, the HP managed a creditable 134.5 fps (we consider 60 fps to be the minimum playable frame rate for games). The system is pleasantly quiet, too.

The Envy 700-030qe offers both a Blu-ray drive and an increasingly rare Blu-ray burner. With its onboard 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter, you won’t have to hardwire the computer to your router (or buy an adapter to take  advantage of a superfast 802.11ac router). The back has two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports; two more of each appear in the front, along with a media-card reader and headphone and mic jacks.

The bundled USB mouse and keyboard (wireless options cost $40 more) are about what you’d expect: The mouse has a nice curve to fit the hand, and the keyboard is a basic black unit with no backlighting. The keyboard does include dedicated buttons for controlling mediaplayer software.



HP Envy 700-030qe

PROS:
• Powerful fourth-generation Intel
processor
• Quiet, sleek, and compact
• Comes with a Blu-ray burner

CONS:
• One 256GB SSD for storage
• Middle-of-the-road video card
• One PCIe x16 slot (occupied)

BOTTOM LINE:
The HP Envy 700-030qe is an aboveaverage,
reasonably priced computer.

PRICE:
$ 1450

PC World USA October 2013