The Asus ExpertCenter D500 ($599) is a basic small-form-factor business desktop. Its limited feature set mostly matches its limited impact on your IT budget, with a few notable exceptions. There's full-wattage performance thanks to a six-core Intel Core i5 CPU, as well as the professional looks and expandability that businesses demand. You'll also find Wi-Fi 6, a SmartCard reader, and a DVD burner. The ExpertCenter D500's budget nature means only a one-year warranty and no Intel vPro remote management, and its bundled keyboard and mouse aren’t great, but it’s still a decent value next to more expensive mainstream business desktops.
Back to Business Basics
Straight lines and a black case mark the ExpertCenter D500 for office duty. Subtle branding and a grated front panel enhance its professional appeal, and the all-metal enclosure feels like it can withstand a few bumps and knocks.
Unlike larger mid-towers that only stand upright, the ExpertCenter D500 also works horizontally, which allows you to put a monitor on top to save space. It measures 13.4 by 3.7 by 11.5 inches (HWD) and weighs about 11 pounds, all within expectations for a small-form-factor chassis.
The front panel offers ample connectivity, with four USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, headphone and headset jacks, a full-size SD card reader, and a SmartCard reader. The power button and a tray-load DVD burner are at the top.
Similar Products
ECS Liva Z5 Plus
HP EliteOne 870 G9
Apple Mac mini (2023, M2 Pro)
HP Z2 Tower G9
Falcon Northwest Talon (2024, Threadripper Pro)
HP Z2 Mini G9
There are enough legacy ports on the back that you could hook up all the peripherals from your old PC (which you might want to do—more on the chintzy-feeling included peripherals later). There are four USB 2.0 ports, PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, and a VGA video-out. Meanwhile, modern connectivity options include HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs, Ethernet, and audio jacks (line-in, line-out, and microphone).
The gold antenna jacks are for the internal Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 combo card. It’s nice to see standard wireless, but the external antenna is an annoyance. (It’s not shown in the photos.) At least the antenna base is magnetic and sticks to the case.
Getting inside the ExpertCenter D500 is a toolless affair. Removing the thumbscrew-secured side panel gives you access to the CPU fan and the expansion slots, which include one PCIe x16, two PCIe x1, and one PCI. Adding a low-profile dedicated graphics card should be possible, provided you can find one that doesn’t require a power connector. (The 300-watt power supply doesn’t have any to spare.)
A metal support arm covers the rest of the motherboard; it swings upward after removing the front panel (secured by clips) and pressing the thumb release at the top. The Intel H410-based MicroATX motherboard has two DIMM slots, one occupied by an 8GB DDR4-2933 module. Up to 64GB (two 32GB DIMMs) can be installed. Curiously, the board’s sole M.2 Type-2280 PCI Express slot extends off the bottom edge, as shown in the image below. The 256GB SSD hangs over onto, and is anchored to, the SmartCard module. Not a problem, just an unusual design move.
Asus thoughtfully includes a 3.5-inch toolless drive caddy under the support arm—there’s even a power connector close by. That’s a simple and easy way to expand internal storage.
Airflow in this tower comes from a perforated side panel and the CPU fan. No other active cooling is required for this setup, and it was all but inaudible during my testing.
So-So Peripherals
The ExpertCenter D500’s included peripherals aren’t much of a selling point. I find the mouse slightly too small for long-term comfort, and the keyboard’s nonstandard layout, with its double-row Enter and small Backspace keys, is likely to prompt appeals to the helpdesk for something better. (I made my share of missed keystrokes.) Given businesses will want to use what’s included, this is a notable downer.
As for included software, Asus’ management app provides the basics, including driver updates and diagnostics. It also offers the ability to set a custom startup logo, which you could use to brand this PC with your own. That said, the app isn’t as capable as what you’d get in a mainstream business PC, such as Dell’s SupportAssist.
Testing the ExpertCenter D500: Six Cores, None the Richer
The ExpertCenter D500SA-EB501 reviewed here is attractively priced at $599 on Newegg. That’s about as low-priced as you can expect for a true business-class small-form-factor tower, as it’s not merely a repurposed consumer-grade desktop. It makes compromises; the six-core, 2.9GHz (4.3GHz Turbo) Core i5-10400 CPU doesn’t support Intel vPro remote management, and it has only a one-year warranty. Dell’s OptiPlex 7090 SFF ($759, similarly equipped) and the HP ProDesk 400 G7 ($671) offer Core i5 vPro CPUs and three-year warranties, and the Dell includes 16GB of RAM for multitasking freedom. The 8GB worth in the ExpertCenter is usable for most office tasks but can get bogged down running lots of apps. (As noted, the RAM is easily upgraded.) Its 256GB SSD is also low-capacity but speedy enough, starting Windows 10 Pro and apps without delay.
Though the ExpertCenter D500 is inexpensive, AMD-based business desktops can still command less. I saw the HP EliteDesk 805 G6 SFF for just $574 direct from HP, with a six-core Ryzen 5 Pro 4650G CPU and a three-year warranty, albeit no Wi-Fi. Thus, unless Intel offers specific advantages for your workflows, don’t count AMD out; you may be able to get a higher-tier tower with comparable performance for the same or less money.
Let’s start the performance testing. The desktops I used for comparison are listed below. Of them, the budget Dell Inspiron Desktop 3891 is the fairest match. The other two, the NZXT H1 Mini Plus and the Intel NUC 11 Extreme Kit gaming desktops, are included since no other budget or business desktops have gone through our new benchmarking regimen.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
Our first test is UL's PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive. The ExpertCenter D500 satisfactorily completed the main test with a score just over the 4,000 points we consider a sign of strong performance. Though its storage score trailed what we see from upper-end SSDs (such as the one in the Intel NUC), it’s acceptably fast for business use.
Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).
Our final productivity test is Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The ExpertCenter D500 handily outperformed the quad-core Dell thanks to its Core i5’s two extra processing cores, and it even gave the Lenovo’s newer “Rocket Lake” Core i5 a run for its money. (In fact, it won in Cinebench.) That said, the 8GB of RAM in the ExpertCenter and the Dell significantly disadvantaged them in the Photoshop test.
Graphics and Gaming Tests
For Windows PCs, we run both synthetic and real-world gaming tests. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Also looped into that group is the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which we use to gauge OpenGL performance.
The ExpertCenter D500 is far from a gaming PC, but its Intel UHD integrated graphics silicon is perfectly adequate for general use and video streaming. (It actually could play some games; just hope your employees don’t find our primer on what you can play on integrated graphics.)
A Sound Budget Business Desktop
The ExpertCenter D500 checks off business PC essentials: build quality, serviceability, and ample performance. For $599, it’s less expensive than mainstream options and still gets the job done.
If you'd rather go for an even cheaper desktop, the Editors' Choice-winning Inspiron Desktop 3891 could serve in a pinch, although as a consumer model it's less-suited to small or medium businesses. You'll need to range much higher on the price ladder to find an Editors' Choice-winning business desktop, like the HP Z2 Tower G4 workstation.
Otherwise, lack of Intel vPro and just a one-year warranty are the ExpertCenter D500's main downsides (aside from the ho-hum included keyboard and mouse). If those aren't deal breakers, this affordable business desktop is a respectable way to trim your company's IT budget.
The slim yet expandable Asus ExpertCenter D500 is a small desktop PC that delivers business basics on a budget.
Like What You're Reading?
Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
Sign up for other newsletters
