HP Pavilion P6230y review

Juice box
HP Pavilion P6230y	Average watts per hour
Off	0.49
Sleep	1.72
Idle	61.04
Load	111.61
Raw (annual kWh)	239.148
Energy Star compliant	No
Annual energy consumption cost	$27.14

The HP Pavilion P6230y fares well against the competition in terms of the energy cost required to keep it running for a year. Coming in at just a few cents more than $27, HP manages to keep costs low, although the P5230y doesn't have much hardware inside to threaten your monthly energy bill in the first place. With a video chip integrated into the motherboard that handles all standard desktop applications and a newer AMD chip, we're not surprised that HP trends toward the more efficient end of the power-draw spectrum.

We used the Asus system as this HP's primary competition because their prices are identical and they have similar feature sets. We'd say Asus won the hardware match-up; however, service and support is a different story. HP's support offerings, on par with Dell's or Gateway's, give you one year of parts-and-labor warranty protection, as well as 24-7 toll-free phone support. We also appreciate its vast array of online support, including live chat. At least for now, HP has the upper hand in customer service.

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:

Asus Essentio CG5270-BP004
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300; 8GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 32MB Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip; 1TB, 7,200rpm hard drive

Gateway DX4300-11
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 2.5GHz AMD Phenom II X4 805; 8GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics chip; 1TB, 7,200rpm hard drive

Gateway SX2800-01
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit; 2.3GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip; 640GB, 7,200rpm hard drive

HP Pavilion P6230y
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit; 2.6 GHz AMD Phenom II X4 810; 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 256MB ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics chip; 750GB, 7,200rpm hard drive

ZT Group Affinity 7334Ma
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit (SP2); 3GHz AMD Phenom II X4 945 Quad Core ; 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 384MB (shared) ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics chip; 1TB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive