HP Pavilion Elite M9550F Desktop PC

by HP

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7 x 16.6 x 15.5 inches ; 29 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 29 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001NXDBGS
• Item model number: M9550F
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,989 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 11, 2009

Product Description

Model: M9550F

Amazon.com Product Description

Delivering an amazing high-end home entertainment experience, DirectX 10 gaming, and power for the most demanding PC tasks, the HP Pavilion m9520f Elite desktop PC is powered by the 2.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300. With four cores in a single processor, the Core 2 Quad and the 8 GB of RAM (maximum capacity) deliver excellent multitasking and multimedia performance, and it's a perfect match for the pre-installed 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. You can also go wireless and clutter-free with wireless keyboard, mouse, and remote control, and it includes the next step in Wi-Fi networking with a Draft-N wireless LAN (802.11b/g/n).

The sleek, black m9550f multimedia powerhouse (see larger version; monitor not included).

A recessed landing pad on top of the chassis offers a convenient place for connecting USB and FireWire devices. One touch of the HP Easy Backup button lets you back up your files instantly, helping to protect irreplaceable photos and files. It comes with a combo optical drive with Blu-ray Disc playback for watching your favorite films in crystal-clear resolution and SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe technology that lets you etch custom, silkscreen-quality labels and artwork directly onto LightScribe-enabled CDs and DVDs.

This Pavilion Elite offers a built-in drive bay to fit an optional HP Pocket Media Drive, for up to 160 GB of additional storage that you can carry away with you when you go (media drive not included). Other features include a ginormous 1 TB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with up to 3579 MB of total available graphics memory, HDMI and DVI video outputs, 15-in-1 memory card reader, up to 8 channels of surround sound output, and Gigabit Ethernet wired networking. It comes with a wired keyboard and mouse.

The pre-installed 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (Service Pack 1) includes all of the Windows Media Center capabilities for turning your PC into an all-in-one home entertainment center. In addition to easily playing your DVD movies and managing your digital audio library, you'll be able to record and watch your favorite TV shows (even HDTV). Vista also integrates new search tools throughout the operating system, includes new parental control features, and offers new tools that can warn you of impending hardware failures.

Spec Check 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9300 processor 1 TB hard drive 8 GB RAM (8 GB maximum) Dual-layer DVD±R drive Quad-mode Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics (up to 3579 MB total) Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit, SP1)

The Basics

• Processor: With four execution cores, the 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9300 blows through processor-intensive tasks in demanding multitasking environments and makes the most of highly threaded applications. Part of Intel's "Penryn" line of 45nm processors, it features new hafnium-infused circuitry to reduce electrical current leakage in transistors and help this desktop run cooler. It also features Intel Trusted Execution Technology, which provides hardware-based mechanisms that help protect against software-based attacks and protects the confidentiality and integrity of data stored or created on the client PC.

  Whether you're creating multimedia, annihilating your gaming enemies, or running compute-intensive applications at one time, new quad-core processing will change the way you do everything. The Q9300 has a top-of-the-line 1333 MHz front-side bus (FSB) and a 6 MB L2 cache. (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data; and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance. The FSB carries data between the CPU and RAM, and a faster front-side bus will deliver better overall performance.)

  You get four dedicated, physical threads help operating systems and applications deliver additional performance that enhance multi-tasking and multi-threaded performance across many types of applications and work loads. The Smart Memory Access feature improves system performance by hiding memory latency, thus optimizing the use of available computer data bandwidth to provide data to the processor when and where it is needed. The Advanced Digital Media Boost feature effectively doubles the execution speed for instructions used widely in multimedia and graphics applications. And with the Intel 64 Architecture, the processor can access larger amounts of memory. With appropriate 64-bit hardware and software, platforms based on an Intel processor supporting Intel 64 Architecture can allow the use of extended virtual and physical memory.

• Hard Drive: This Pavilion Elite provides a stunning 1 TB of storage (that's 1,000 Gigabytes), from a single Serial ATA hard drive (7200 RPM), offering one of the largest capacities you'll currently find in a desktop. You'll enjoy the space for storing your entire music collection as well as your DVDs and downloaded TV shows and movies. This SATA hard drive also quickens the pace with a higher speed transfer of data--akin to Firewire and USB 2.0.

• Memory: The 8 GB of installed RAM (PC6400) helps boost the amount of available video RAM that's shared with this notebook's video card. It also offers a fast 800 MHz speed. The 8 GB of RAM maximizes this desktop's capacity.

• DVD/CD Drive: This multiformat DVD/CD drive is compatible with writing both DVD+ and DVD- disc formats as well as dual-layer (DL) DVD+/-R discs, which can store up to 8.5 GB of data. It features 12x DVD±R DL Write Once, 16x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 12x DVD-RAM, 40x CD-R, 32x CD-RW write speeds and 40x CD-ROM, and 16x DVD-ROM read speeds.

  This LightScribe DVD±RW drive lets you laser-etch silkscreen quality text and images on to CDs and DVDs . Your software, PC and discs work together for a no-hassle way to burn just the labels you want. After you burn content, just flip the disc over, reinsert and burn your label--anything from a simple title to a full-disc work of art.

• Keyboard & Mouse: It comes with an HP multimedia keyboard and scroller mouse (both with PS/2 connections).

Video & Audio
Video is powered by the ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card, which provides 512 MB dedicated graphics memory and up to 3579 MB as allocated by the Windows Vista operating system. ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series GPUs bring the power of graphics "supercomputing" to gamers, setting a new standard for visual computing. With up to 1.2 teraFLOPS on tap, the TeraScale graphics engine delivers an immersive, cinematic gaming experience. Enhanced anti-aliasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering create striking graphics with unparalleled realism so you can max out the settings of the most demanding next-generation games or revitalize your favorite titles. You'll also be able to watch Blu-ray movies and play HD content with incredible visual fidelity and take your experience to another level with new multimedia capabilities. Sophisticated new features within ATI Avivo HD technology give you the freedom and flexibility to edit videos quickly and convert them to H.264 and MPEG-2 formats 1.8x faster than real-time.

The video card includes VGA and DVI video out as well as HDMI audio/video out options. This PC also offers an integrated audio card that can produce high definition surround sound configurable to 8 speakers.

Networking, Connectivity & Expansion
This desktop can be wirelessly networked with the integrated Draft-N Wi-Fi LAN (802.11b/g/n). Based on the draft 802.11n Wi-Fi specification, it offers up to five times the performance and twice the wireless range as existing 802.11g wireless. It's also backward compatible with 802.11b/g networks. It has one PCI expansion slot (available), two PCI x1 Express slots (one available), one PCI x16 Express slot (occupied), two 5.25-inch bays (one available), three 3.5-inch bays (one available), and the following external ports:

• 6 USB 2.0 ports for connecting a wide range of peripherals--from digital cameras to MP3 players (2 in front, 4 in rear)
• 2 FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link) port for connecting digital video camcorders and other peripherals (1 in front, 1 in rear)
• Video out: DVI, HDMI, and VGA
• Headphone and microphone jacks
• Audio: Digital SPDIF audio input/output, analog input/output
• Surround sound speakers--rear, side, center (subwoofer)
• 2 PS/2 ports for connecting keyboards and mice
• 15-in-1 media card reader on the front, compatible with CompactFlash (Type I and II), MicroDrive, SmartMedia, Memory Stick/Pro/Duo/Pro Duo, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital, XD Picture Card, RSMMC, MMC Mobile, MMC+
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
• 56K modem (V.90)

Operating System
The 64-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium (with SP1) is the operating system for users with advanced computer needs, and it includes all of the Windows Media Center capabilities for turning your PC into an all-in-one home entertainment center for watching DVD movies and accessing your digital audio library. You can also use Windows Media Center to record and watch your favorite TV shows (even HDTV) and to access new kinds of online entertainment content. Computers that include Windows Vista Home Premium and an auxiliary Windows SideShow display will also allow you to access key data even when your computer is off. It is also easier than ever to share files between other PCs in your household and to manage your laptop computer settings to more securely connect via Wi-Fi.

Every edition of Windows Vista provides the essential tools and technologies to help protect you whether you are browsing the Internet, connecting to a wireless network, or just reading e-mail. All editions of Windows Vista include new tools that can warn you of impending hardware failures long before you have lost any important personal data. And, all Windows Vista editions include parental control features that allow you to manage and monitor your family's use of games, the Internet, instant messaging, and other activities.

Preloaded Software

• HP MediaSmart Software Suite: Your one-stop multimedia and entertainment center to create photo slideshows, share personal videos, listen to your favorite music playlists and watch DVD movies.
• muvee autoProducer Basic: Automatically create professional looking home videos and burn to DVD.
• Cyberlink DVD Suite Deluxe: Automatically fix and edit videos and create CDs and DVDs. Edit, burn and archive data to discs.
• Microsoft Works 9: Includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database and calendar.
• Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 (60-day trial version).
• Adobe Reader 8: Read and print PDF files.
• Norton Internet Security 2009 protects your PC and your identity when you email, bank and shop online; 60 days of protection updates included.

Dimensions & Weight
This desktop measures 16.61 x 7.0 x 15.51 inches (LxWxD) and weighs approximately 24.25 pounds.

Power

What's in the Box
The HP Pavilion Elite m9550f desktop PC comes with a power cord, keyboard, and scroller mouse. It is backed by a one-year warranty for parts and labor from date of purchase, one-year technical phone service, and 90 days of software application support.

Note: Monitor not included.

Product Description

The HP Pavilion Elite delivers an amazing high-end home entertainment experience, DX10 3D Mainstream gaming, and power for the most demanding PC tasks. This premium PC¿s enhanced features and technology puts everything you need where you want it. The m9550f ships with Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition with Service Pack 1, 2.50GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9300 with 6MB L2 Cache, 8GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM memory (4x2048MB for ultimate performance), 1TB 7200RPM Serial ATA hard drive, SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technoloy, ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card with 512MB dedicated graphics memory, DVI, HDMI and VGA capabilities, and support for Blu-ray and Microsoft DirectX 10 and Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n. Dimensions: 7.00 (W) x 16.61 (L/D) x 15.51 (H) approx., 24.25 lbs. approx.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful Machine useful for Photographer's workflow, February 25, 2009

By 

Jeep 4x4 Enthusiast "jeep4x4enthusiast" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HP Pavilion Elite M9550F Desktop PC (Personal Computers)

My review is mostly for Enthusiast/Professional Photographers...

I needed a new powerful desktop with 64-bit processing. My Sony Vaio desktop that once was cutting edge two years ago,is now not able to keep up with many of todays demands. Especially my updated versions of Photoshop CS, and Lightroom 2.3 which works native in 64-bit.

64-bit allows windows to accept, use and maximize a computer with 4+ gbs of RAM. The HP Pavilion Elite M9550F comes pre-installed with a maxed out 8gbs of ram.

So for a photographer using high end software, and downloading large amounts of files. This computer works swiftly and effortlessly.

On my older sony desktop, it took about 15 minutes to download 4gb off of a compact flashcard. I could not do any other task while it downloaded, or risked data loss or the download not completing.

It takes about a minute to download with the HP, and I listen to music and/or check emails with no detectable slow down in the system.

On my old desktop, if I changed modules in lightroom, or did any form of editing it took a few seconds to see the changes. I sometimes had to hit Ctrl+Z so I can see the before image. With my new HP,... It's so fast that I miss the changes if they are not drastic. The screen appears to blink, because it responds so fast to my commands.

The onboard 1TB of storage is another huge plus. There are still very few desktops on the market with an internal 1TB drive. I have purchased three 1TB external hardrives, with two mirroring the HP's internal drive. There is a bay available that can be used for an additional internal drive, and you can purchase a HP Media Drive up to 1TB to plug right into a special bay. No wires, or software is necessary.

I distribute CD's to models and clients often. The LightScribe technology that is part of the CD/DVD drive lets you etch custom labels and artwork right on a LightScribe-enabled CD or DVD. This allows you to look professional and a cut about the rest.

There are several ways to hook up a monitor, so I have the VGA attached to my old CRT monitor, and HDMI port attached to a 30inch flatscreen. Using dual displays is just a few clicks, and takes your image editing to another level.

There are a lot of features that I'm sure I missed, but these are the standout features to me, using it for photography.

34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent computer (HP m9500y/m9500f), April 5, 2009

By 

Eric (Portland, OR, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Pavilion Elite M9500F Desktop PC (Personal Computers)

Edit (May 3, 2009): My review is for the HP m9500y, which has the same specs as listed for the m9500f on amazon.com. My review is for that computer only. My review also appears for the HP m9550f because Amazon.com has the two products linked.

I've owned an HP m9500y for a couple months now. It's a decent PC and runs all the software I want to run (including software development tools and games, in addition to web & email, etc.); however, this computer has some bad enough quirks to make me not want to buy another one of these.

I'll start out with the good things about this computer:
- It's fast, and it has tons of RAM and hard drive space. Having a quad-core CPU really helps with multi-tasking and CPU-intensive software that can take advantage of more than 1 core (i.e., making use of multi-threading). Even if AMD may be falling behind Intel these days, I think they still make a very good CPU. Also, 8GB of RAM as standard is fairly rare these days in a desktop PC and is more than enough for what I need. The RAM is decently fast, too (DDR2-6400). The hard drive is also fairly large: 750GB is more than I would expect in a desktop PC at this price.
- The video card (Nvidia GeForce 9500) is decent for gaming. I'm fairly familiar with gaming video cards, and as far as Nvidia cards go, I'd have preferred a 9600 or 9800, but Nvidia's 9500 card is still fairly good and runs all the games I enjoy pretty smoothly. It's nice that it has 512MB of RAM, too. In addition, the video card has an HDMI output, which I think is a nice touch - from what I've seen, that is still fairly uncommon for desktop video cards.

Overall, I think the combination of the video card, quad-core CPU, RAM, and hard drive space is a very good value for the price of this PC.

Now, onto the bad stuff:
- The USB interfaces may be somewhat unstable in some circumstances. One time when I plugged my USB printer into one of the rear USB ports, the computer rebooted.
- The microphone inputs are unacceptable, in my opinion. I like to occasionally voice chat with people over the internet, and the microphone inputs are unsuitable for that. My voice is masked behind a lot of noise using the rear mic input, and if I use the front mic input, my voice isn't picked up at all. I also like to occasionally record music on my computer, so the audio inputs on this computer are definitely not adequate. For voice chat, I ended up buying an inexpensive USB audio adapter for its microphone input, and it works well (it's one of these: Syba SD-CM-UAUD USB Stereo Audio Adapter, C-Media Chipset, RoHS).
- After only 2 months, the video card fan in my PC started to vibrate loudly. This is something I find pretty annoying, and it's disappointing that it started to happen so soon.
- The motherboard's PCI Express is not the newer 2.0 standard. This could be a limiting factor if you ever decide to upgrade the video card. Many new video cards support the newer PCI Express 2.0 standard; they are backwards-compatible with PCI Express 1.0, so they would still work with this motherboard, but they would not be able to take advantage of the PCI Express 2.0 specs.

Hare are some of my miscellaneous other thoughts:
- The flash card reader is a nice touch. I have a couple devices (digital camera and a music synthesizer) that use flash media, and it's nice to be able to plug the media into the reader in this PC to copy the files off. My digital camera uses only USB 1.1, so this PC's built-in card reader is faster.
- This PC has bays that support HP's Pocket Media and Media Drive technology. It looks like these are hot-swappable hard drives designed by HP, but I had never heard of them before I bought this PC. With USB hard drives and flash drives, I'm not likely to use HP's media/pocket drives, so these are insignificant to me.
- This PC lacks a reset button. I realize the same effect could probably be done using the power button or unplugging the PC, but it's nice having a reset button in case the computer ever freezes up and you need to do a hard reset. Besides, a reset button is standard on many PCs, so it just seems odd that HP would not include a reset button.
- The power supply lacks a hard power switch. Again, this is something that I think is nice to have and is included on many power supplies, so it seems odd not to have one.
- The DVD burner does not seem to work with TDK double-layer media. I have a spindle of TDK double-layer DVD+R media that I had used with my old PCs; however, the drive in this computer always gives burning errors with these discs. I've found that Verbatim double-layer DVDs work fine in it though.

Personally, I am disappointed in the negatives that I have pointed out. The video card fan vibration is particularly annoying. I give this PC a 3-star rating for its overall value (CPU, RAM, hard drive space, and choice of video card), but I can't give it more than that due to the negatives.

Normally I like to build my own PC, but I was in a bit of a financial bind, which is why I bought one of these. If you're in the market for a PC, I'd recommend you look elsewhere or build your own PC if you are savvy enough. Unfortunately, I think the reason many of these name-brand PCs have become as cheap as they are is that some of the components they use are cheap and are lacking in quality.

Edit (May 3, 2009): I contacted HP customer support about the video card fan noise and asked if they would send me a new video card. They agreed and shipped me a new video card at no cost to me via FedEx, complete with a pre-paid shipping label that I could use to ship my old card back to them. I received and installed the new video card on April 28, 2009. So far, the loud vibrating noise has not returned, and my computer is actually quieter than it was before. The new video card still says on it that it's revision 1.0, but it has a blue fan shield rather than a black shield, which suggests that they may have updated the cooler/fan design on the card.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "Total Care" to a certain point, May 12, 2009

By 

Dog Lover "Dog lover" (Field of Dreams Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Pavilion Elite M9500F Desktop PC (Personal Computers)

I bought this item on January 19th 2009. It never worked right with the first indication being it wouldn't wake up from sleep mode without a hard restart.
In the 3 months I had this machine it was sent back to HP to be repaired 3 times each time spending countless hours with tech support and trying to decipher the foreign language of the Tech support person, making the experience even more frustrating. the Hard drive the video card and the CPU all blew up in that 3 months. The last time the computer only ran for 2 hours before it blew up.
I again called HP tech support and told them I wanted a new one and don't want this one back, the person said he "have supervisor call you back in 2 hours" No one called back. When I tried to contact them again they must have had my account flagged and would not talk to me anymore, just put me on hold for 4 hours at a time. So "Total Care" was only if you don't want a new one after 3 tries to fix it.
The good news is I was able to get my money back from the seller
I did some research and talked to a friend that works for a processor company in New Mexico. What he told me was HP only buys refurbished components from their suppliers (China parts assembled in Mexico) and is why they can sell the Computers cheaper than most. The reason they don't have to tell you that is the parts were refurbished before it was a computer. This explains the problems I had.

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