2. The Case

Upon receipt of my new MEGA 180, I was happy to discover it was as classy looking as I had hoped. The black-mirrored front bezel gave it a great finished look. After placing it next to my previous HTPC, it became apparent that I would no longer be embarrassed by my case.

The MSI MEGA 180 Barebone case next to my old HTPC:half the size and none of the ugly.

One of the most unique features of the MEGA180 is that it will play CDs, MP3-CDs and radio without fully powering on the system. There are two separate power buttons. One is marked HiFi and the other PC. The one marked HiFi will power the FM tuner, LCD display, sound hardware and optical drive without booting the system or using the CPU. The other button, marked PC, booted the system normally. The HiFi power button allows you to have instant-on access to music as you would with a regular stereo system (unfortunately this functionality did not extend to DVD playback).

The MEGA 180 also came with a multi-card reader and a mini-PCI slot with an 802.11b wireless networking card already installed. The onboard sound hardware had SPDIF ports on both the front and the back of the case, and the onboard Geforce 4 video came with two VGA ports for dual displays and an S-video port. USB expandability was limited to two rear ports and two front ports, which was a little restricting, but I got used to it. Strangely there was also an integrated 56K modem thrown into the mix, which is not something you see very often anymore.

MEGA180 rear ports

MEGA180 front ports