Maingear Unveils Axess HD Home Theater PC

By Geoff Duncan March 5, 2008

Boutique builder and systems integrator Maingear has taken the wraps off its Axess HD Home Theather media center PCs featuring a low-profile enclosure, AMD’s 780G chipset, AT Radeon 3200 HD graphics, a Blu-ray drive as stock option, and an optional OLED front panel display.

"Whether you want to watch high definition over the air television, Blu-ray movies at 1080p, or just listen to music or look at family pictures, our Axess HD Home Theater media center is the perfect solution," says Maingear CEO Wallace Santos, in a statement.

The Axess HD Home Theater runs Windows Vista’s media center extender technology, so users can push content throughout their homes using in-house networking. The units feature acoustically tuned fans and hard drives to minimize noise and a standard Blu-ray drive for high-definition movie playback, although upgrade options are also available to Blu-ray/HD DVD hybrid drives or DVD-only drives. Other options include an upgrade to AMD Phenom Quad Core processors, a VisionTek TV Wonder PCI HDTV Tuner, up to 2 TB of hard drive storage (on two drives), an ATI Radeon HD 3450 graphics controller, and 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking. Maingear is also touting the systems as snappy gaming platforms, enabling users to run big-screen versions of their favorite PC games from their couches.

The Axess HD Home Theater media center PCs start at $1,395.

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