Verdict: ECS VS THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS
Churning out sequels is a Hollywood tradition. Successful first movies spawn franchises, while prequels, spin-offs and remakes all help to squeeze every last penny out of an original idea. However, the law of diminishing returns means that most of these celluloid by-products have all the value of actual manufacturing by-products: many of these films are so toxic that only VHS tapes buried deep at the bottom of the bargain bin can contain their evil.
We reviewed the original EZ-Buddie D1V7-2 SFF bare bones just two months ago, but already ECS has returned with a sequel. As the original EZ-Buddie was slow, difficult to build, poorly documented and had an overclocking knob that didn't work, it's fair to say the EZ-Buddie 2 was about as eagerly awaited as a fourth 'Robocop' film starring Madonna.
The EZ-Buddie 2 is, however, the cinematic equivalent of turning up to see Robocop 4 and finding the cinema has put 'Lord Of The Rings' on instead, and that Madonna has renounced acting forever. The EZ-Buddie 2 is fast, quick to build and well documented. However, it does suffer from some of the faults of its predecessor, as it still has an ineffectual overclocking knob.
While the original EZ-Buddie supported Athlon XP processors, ECS has opted to upgrade the central talent for the sequel. The I4-3 version of the EZ-Buddie 2 has a Socket 478 Pentium 4 motherboard based on the Intel 865G chipset. As the motherboard is mounted on the side of the chassis, the AGP 8x and PCI slot have plenty of room to breathe, allowing you to fit a dual-slot graphics card. While the new cooling design of the Shuttle XPC SB81P (see p32) has evolved considerably, the EZ-Buddie 2 still uses a traditional heatpipe design. The CPU itself is covered by a large plate with four embedded heatpipes that connect to a radiator cooled by an 80mm fan. It might not be technically innovative, but it's proven cooling technology, and it means the system can manage with just two fans. The second fan sits on top of the Northbridge, and sports a showy blue and red LED. As the EZ-Buddie 2 has a totally opaque case, it's a bizarre move, akin to hiring Pamela Anderson as a tea lady on the set of a feature film.
Paradoxically, the small size of SFF PCs actually makes them more visible. While midi-tower PCs are stuffed under desks or serve as makeshift tables, SFFs often sit in full sight, or even find their way into the lounge to ply their trade as media centre PCs. Looks matter, and fortunately, it seems that ECS has sent the EZ-Buddie 2 to a plastic surgeon. The original EZ-Buddie looked flimsy and boxy, but the new version, with its black and silver finish, is much more stylish. Build quality is good and the aluminium dials on the front wouldn't disgrace a stereo. Even the LEDs hide gracefully behind a mirrored section of the fascia when the PC is off. When the unit is powered on, however, it's as garish as you'd expect it to be.
Building the first EZ-Buddie was a tortuous process, akin to the progress of a Hollywood script making its way past numerous script doctors, crazed producers and egocentric A-listers. The EZ-Buddie 2 is much easier to build, thanks partly to its spacious interior. That's because it has an external PSU, and only one 5.25in and one 3.5in drive bay. The 3.5in bay is internal, so it's only suited for a hard drive, so fitting a floppy drive is impossible. However, considering that the EZ-Buddie 2 is clearly aimed at the media centre market, and already boasts an integrated memory card reader, it's doubtful just how limiting only having two drive bays really is. A single 250GB hard drive and DVD writer would give the EZ-Buddie plenty of power. The only frustration is that the external PSU provides just two Molex plugs, so you'll need a Molex splitter if you want to fit a modern graphics card.
ECS further boosts the EZ-Buddie 2's media centre credentials by bundling a keyboard, mouse and pair of speakers. The slim keyboard is compact and comfortable to use. The mouse is fine for general Windows use, though it struggles with games. Still, both peripherals are kitted out in matching black and silver, giving the system a colour coordinated style. Sadly, we couldn't test the speakers, as our review unit only came with a 115V American style PSU. Doh!
As befits the EZ-Buddie 2's media centre focus, there's a huge range of extra features. The LCD on the front panel shows the time, while the dial can be used to adjust the volume. There's a remote control, which is handy but could be more responsive, and an integrated FM radio tuner. While you can't listen to the radio in Windows, you can listen to it without having to fully boot the PC. Pressing the FM button on the remote while you're in Windows puts the PC into standby mode as the radio kicks in, so you can quickly switch between the two.
As with AOpen's XC Cube AV EA65, ECS provides its own Linux-based media centre software, which you can boot into instead of Windows. The EZ-Cinema mode is driven purely by the remote. Although it's less sophisticated than the AOpen software, it's not bad and can play DVDs, audio CDs, MP3s and view JPEGs from memory cards. For DVD playback in Windows, there's a remote control-enabled version of WinCinema, which is more feature-rich than the clunky Home Theater programme AOpen bundles. The EZ-Buddie is also highly suited to its role as a media centre PC, as it has only two fans, so is fairly quiet.
PERFORMANCE
Despite all the extra multimedia functions, performance is the EZ-Buddie 2's strongest feature. The AOpen SFF is also based on the Intel 865G chipset. However, using the same test kit, the EZ-Buddie 2 proved to be slightly faster at stock speeds. The EZ-Buddie 2 was five seconds quicker at ripping CD audio tracks and converting them to OGG Vorbis files, and a colossal one minute and six seconds faster at the new video encoding test. The AOpen had the upper hand at image encoding, though, finishing twenty seconds ahead of the EZ-Buddie 2. However, both SFF bare bones are fast, as both edged ahead of our new reference PC, which also uses a 2.6GHz Pentium 4c.
Games-wise, the EZ-Buddie 2 was predictably disappointing. The new Intel GMA900 GPU puffs and wheezes through our Unreal II test, and the 865G GPU can't even make it to the end. An AGP card is a must for games.
When it came to overclocking, the hefty aluminium dial on the front proved to be the equivalent of an excellent trailer for a disappointing movie. It looks good, but we could only up the FSB by 10MHz before the EZ-Buddie 2 became unstable. Worse, the BIOS has only one overclocking option: an AGP/PCI lock, with no voltage or FSB controls.
CONCLUSION
It won't take much to turn the EZ-Buddie 2 into a decent media PC. The FM radio tuner is nifty, and as a PC, it's quick enough for tasks such as editing digital photos.
While the EZ Buddie 2 lacks some of the features and finesse of the AOpen SFF, it's fast, reasonably easy to build and, considering the bundled peripherals, good value for money. It's that rarest of sequels: one that is far better than the original.
