Asus V500 SFF (V501SV) Malaysia review: Compact everyday home desktop
It seems today that all we see are laptops and smartphones when it comes to devices, with desktop PCs taking a backseat to their more portable siblings. That’s not to say that the good ol’ home PC is no longer around of course, but it’s definitely not as common as before.
Asus Malaysia is hoping to change that though with their latest prebuilt desktop PC in Malaysia, the Asus V500 SFF (V501SV). Its catchy name aside, this is a PC designed for the modern home, and when Asus offered us a chance to check it out, we thought why not, and tried out the V500 SFF for a couple of weeks.
A throwback to the past
If you were born before the turn of the century, you probably grew up with one common PC in your house, probably in a beige case too. The V500 SFF to me feels like a throwback to those days, meant to blend into any room or home almost like furniture, while also offering a reliable easy experience especially for the less tech literate family members.
Right out of the box, we like that it comes with a bundled keyboard and mouse, making it easy for any family getting their first home computer to set things up. In fact at time of writing, it even comes bundled with a 27-inch monitor, though more on that later.
Available in black or white colour options, the V500 SFF that we received came in white, and overall we quite liked the design. The case itself is sleek and minimalistic, with the front intake hidden away by a soft rounded edge. It might be positioned as a home PC, but the case is certainly a big departure from the big beige boxes of yesteryear.
We also liked that the V500 SFF, like its name might suggest, has a rather small form factor. At just 8.6L in volume and a footprint of just 9.46 by 29.43cm, the V500 SFF will fit on nearly any table, while leaving a lot of real estate leftover for your mousepad, keyboard, monitors and other accessories. It’s also quite light at just a little over 5kg.
Good enough for everyday use
Let’s be clear from the start: this is not a high end gaming desktop, nor is this a workstation PC. This is a home PC meant for your family members to do their daily scrolling, replying to emails and watching some YouTube, and should be treated as such.
The processor in the model we got was the Intel Core 5 210H, and in case you were wondering yes that is a laptop chip. This 8-core processor is actually enough for nearly all day-to-day use cases; I worked off multiple Chrome windows with Spotify in the background as well as some light photo editing just fine actually on the V500 SFF, and for the most part handles general computing with no issue whatsoever. It’s snappy and responsive, with no noticeable lag in most cases.
In games though the V500 SFF starts to struggle. Again, this is a home PC and not a gaming machine, but on the off chance that little Jimmy wants to play some Cyberpunk 2077, he might be better off elsewhere as we only managed 17fps on 1080p low settings. We got some slightly better scores in Total War Three Kingdoms, but still only just 30fps at 1080p low.
We do still like the ease of use when it comes to opening up the V500 SFF’s case, with everything laid out in an organised way, and if you want to add hard drives you can too as they’ve included a hard drive bay in the box. It comes with two SODIMM slots, already filled with 16GB of memory, but you could totally swap them out with 32GB sticks per slot if you have the cash too.
Another plus point that makes this an easy to use computer for the home is the plethora of I/O. On the front, there’s a 3.5mm combo audio jack, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port, while on the back you’ll find four more USB-A 2.0 ports, an RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet port, a HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.4 output, 7.1 channel audio and a Kensington lock.
One thing I do have to point out though is that Asus does claim that the V500 SFF offers ‘near silent’ cooling, with the compact CPU air cooler being more efficient at cooling the processor with little noise. And while yes, the fans are relatively quiet, the V500 SFF seems to have a little coil whine, which is this high pitched buzz that happens usually only when it’s under a heavier load. Not a deal breaker, and honestly might only be a thing on our review unit, but it’s still worth pointing out.
Fine little PC, if only it was cheaper
At time of writing, there’s three configurations on the Asus Malaysia eStore, all of which come with the Asus VY279HGR monitor while stocks last. Here’s how much they cost:
- Asus V500 SFF (V501SV) – Intel Core 3 100U, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD – RM3,299
- Asus V500 SFF (V501SV) – Intel Core 5 210H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD – RM4,299
- Asus V500 SFF (V501SV) – Intel Core 7 240H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD – RM4,899
For all the great things that the Asus V500 SFF (V501SV) does such as its ease of setup and use, its durability with premium solid capacitors, up to an 80+ Platinum power supply and sleek little case, it does have a pretty steep price tag.
As a comparison, the M4 Mac Mini starts at RM3,349 at time of writing, with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and is even smaller than the V500 SFF. Sure, you do lose out on a bundled keyboard and mouse, and Asus is currently throwing in a free monitor too, but the M4 Mac Mini is a lot more computer compared to the Intel Core 3 and the Intel Core 5 models.
Overall, the Asus V500 SFF (V501SV) is not a bad product, not at all. However, if you are considering it as your next PC for your home, we do hope that you do try to find it on discount, as it’s currently priced a little too high for us to comfortably recommend.
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