HP Pavilion p7-1167cb Review

The HP Pavilion p7-1167cb ($899.99 list at Costco) is a desktop tower bundled with a 25-inch monitor—a perfect buy for users looking to replace their dated home PC and display. If your needs lie in day-to-day productivity and media-intensive tasks, like encoding a video for your smartphone or editing images in Photoshop, I'd put my money on the Pavilion p7-1167cb's Core i5 processor. Add to that the p7-1167cb's sweet price tag and faster processor, and the Editors' Choice for midrange desktops.

Design and Features
The Pavilion p7-1167cb has the same black aluminum chassis and glossy plastic front panel as most other towers in the Pavilion line, like the p7-1067cb ($999.99 list, 4 stars). Accenting the entire structure is a light at the top of the face panel; it glows a white/blue color when the system is on (it glows orange when the system is asleep). There's a sliding door on the front panel that conceals an audio and mic jack, and two USB 2.0 ports. At the top is a series of media card slots (xD/SmartMedia, CompactFlash, SD/MMC, and Memory Stick), and finishing off the feature selection in the front of the chassis is a DVD+-RW (with LightScribe). The back has four USB 2.0 ports, audio-in and -out, a mic jack, Ethernet, and VGA and DVI-D video outputs. The system also comes with integrated 802.11n Wi-Fi.

The bundled 25-inch LCD monitor (HP 2511x) is big and bright. It comes with multiple input methods, including HDMI, DVI-D, and VGA. The Pavilion p7-1167cb comes with all the proper cables to connect the desktop to the monitor—all but HDMI, as the system only has DVI-D and VGA video outputs onboard. The monitor doesn't come with integrated speakers, but there's a pair of external ones bundled in. If you don't require a monitor with your PC then I would recommend checking out the Asus Essentio CM6850-07 ($829.99 list, 3.5), which has Intel's more advanced Core i7 CPU and plenty of expansion room for future growth.

The system has some expansion room: The two RAM slots are full (8GB), but the three PCIe x1 slots and one PCIe x16 slot are open for upgrades. You will have to consider the 300W power supply, however, especially if you're thinking of adding in a discrete graphics card. There are two hard drive bays and one optical drive bay (in case you want to upgrade to a Blu-ray player), but only two SATA ports available. However, upgrading the hard drive shouldn't be an issue, as the Pavilion p7-1167cb already comes with 1TB worth (7,200rpm) of storage space, which is the same amount as the HP p7-1067cb and HP Pavilion p7-1047cb ($799 list, 4 stars).

The p7-1167cb comes with HP's Premier Image. That means that the hard drive is relatively clear of bloatware; the only extraneous software on the system included Blio eReader and Bing Bar (a browser add-on).

Costco also offers customers some added benefits. For example, whereas most vendors provide just a one-year warranty, Costco bumps that up to two years. It also offers Costco's Concierge Services, which a free service to Costco members who purchase electronics at the store. The service gives you access to technicians to walk you system setup, product use, and for troubleshooting. Lastly, the store accepts returns within 90 days (which takes care of buyers' remorse).

Performance
In day-to-day productivity and media-intensive tasks, like encoding a video for your smartphone or editing images in Photoshop, the Pavilion p7-1167cb's 3.1GHz Intel Core i5-2400 processor and 8GB of RAM proved better than others in its class. In PCMark 7 its score of 2,955 was ahead of the Editors' Choice HP p7-1067cb (2,314) and HP p7-1047cb (2,686) by a significant margin. The Pavilion p7-1167cb encorded a video in Handbrake in 1 minute 17 seconds and ran through Photoshop CS5 in 3:18—it took the HP p7-1067cb (1:27 in Handbrake; 3:31 in CS5) and HP p7-1047cb (1:29 in Handbrake; 3:31 in CS5) slightly longer.

The Pavilion p7-1167cb comes with Intel's integrated graphics, which means that it won't be able to handle anything beyond playing a game of Team Fortress 2, Limbo, or World of Warcraft. The HP p7-1067cb, on the other hand, comes equipped with a modest AMD Radeon HD 6450 (512MB) discrete graphics card that will get you through the door on some mid-range titles (DirectX 10 and DX9 mostly). In gaming tests, the Pavilion p7-1167cb couldn't run Lost Planet 2 (DX11) and yielded unplayable frame rates in Crysis (14.7fps on Medium settings 1,280-by-720 resolution). The HP p7-1067cb was able to run Lost Planet 2, but was unable to yield playable frame rates (14fps), and on Crysis it was close to a playable result (29fps) on Medium settings.

The HP Pavilion p7-1167cb is a great desktop/monitor deal; it's an all-inclusive bundle to replace your old home computer. Its Core i5 processor is faster than the CPUs equipped in the HP p7-1067cb and HP p7-1047cb, but the former will provide more 3D oomph. However, when taking the p7-1167cb's price tag into consideration, as well as its faster parts, and you can see why this system is worthy of our Editors' Choice award for midrange desktops.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
Check out the test scores for the HP Pavilion p7-1167cb

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the HP Pavilion p7-1167cb with several other desktops side by side.

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