Conclusion and rating
The MSI Hermes is a flexible desktop unit. Most of the components needed for a fully functioning PC are already included in the package. From a system builders point of view, the access to the CPU, hard drive and optical drive sections is easy and straightforward. We can see that a reasonable amount of thought has been put into the overall design and construction elements of the Hermes.
The motherboard can take any 533FSB S478 processor. That boils down to the possibility of using a 3.06GHz CPU, and while the processor's speed won't be maximised by the board, it still stands to reason that the Hermes can be turned into a deceptively powerful 2D machine. That, if we're being critical, is where the problems start and finish. The lack of a dedicated AGP slot prohibits the Hermes from being thought of from a gaming standpoint. All the CPU horsepower in the world isn't going to help the on-board graphics, especially with the polygon and shading requirements of some of today's games. You could try to navigate this apparent problem by purchasing a dedicated gaming PCI card. Still, you shouldn't expect to see a Radeon 9800 Pro or GeForce FX in anything other than AGP format.
We do, however, like the amount of attention that has been paid to specifying a number of video-out options. Standard HD15 is complemented with DVI, S-Video and coaxial AV. Further, 6-channel sound is provided via a trusted software CODEC. That seems to push the Hermes into a distinctly multimedia class of machine. We'd have little trouble using it in the lounge as a DVD / DivX / MP3 player. Indeed, we can think of a number of uses for this multimedia moghul.
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Separate DVD / DivX / MP3 player
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Reasonable second PC
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Business machine
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Decent server
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SETI cruncher
In short, a featured, well-designed base unit with a number of possible uses. The business sector will appreciate its versatility, but it may well get shunned by the enthusiast crowd for not being equipped with an AGP slot. Horses for courses, as always.
