Product Reviews

There's only one thing that most people need to know about the Athlon 64: it's fast. Very, very fast. (Inquisitive types wanting to know why should see Athlon 64 Unmasked, above.) The thing is, the first Athlon 64 PCs came with a price tag that was as hefty as they were powerful. At £1,500 a pop, they were well out of the average person's reach.

Well, there's good news! Thanks to the release of AMD's cheaper, Athlon 64 3000+ chip, these super-fast systems are available for the kind of price the rest of us can afford. On-the-ball manufacturers like Mesh and Systemax can now dip below £1,000 without making compromises. We look at two of the latest systems to see how they fared.

VIDEO, GAMES AND DVD

Systemax has built its machine around the ever-impressive ATI All-in-Wonder 9800SE graphics card. This is one of the most versatile cards you'll ever see, with enough oomph to cope with the latest games while packing in a TV tuner. Not only can you watch TV on your PC, but you can also record programmes on to your hard disk. It even supports timeshifting, which means you can pause live TV to answer the phone, and then come back to the programme, press play and watch from the point you left off.

The All-in-Wonder is also ideal for editing video. The card can import video from a non-digital camcorder, and there's a FireWire port to plug a digital one into. You also get a bundle of programs to turn raw material into something worth watching. Systemax's choice of Sony's latest DVD writer means you're able to write both DVD+R and DVD-R discs within ten minutes.

The Mesh Matrix can also create DVDs, but as it stands it provides no way to hook up a conventional camcorder. Its DVD writer is also a little slower at writing DVD+R/RW discs. Those few extra minutes are unlikely to matter - and it's more than made up for by the inclusion of the flexible video-editing program Pinnacle Studio 8 SE.

For gaming, the Systemax appears to beat the Mesh hands-down. The Inspire scores 15,139 in 3DMark 2001SE, compared with the Mesh's 13,712. This test measures a system's 3D gaming performance, so the Systemax will be slightly better than the Mesh at rendering the lush 3D graphics of the latest games. The Inspire also comes with a CRT monitor, rather than a TFT flat panel. TFTs have had problems displaying the quick-moving action found in games. Accordingly, most gamers preferred CRTs, despite their bulkiness. In addition, the Mesh has a wireless keyboard and mouse - something gamers used to be suspicious of, due to the lag between pressing a button and the PC responding.

Don't be deceived by first impressions. Reaction times on TFTs have improved enormously, and the Mesh's Viewsonic model is no exception. We played a game of Unreal Tournament 2003 on both systems, and found both monitors equally responsive. Similarly, there's no longer a time lag on good-quality wireless mice and keyboards.

If you're a gaming fanatic then the Systemax's extra 3DMark points will be worth the sacrifice of a thin monitor and wireless peripherals. For everyone else, the Mesh will do just fine. If you intend to watch lots of DVD movies on your PC, though, the better viewing angles of the Systemax's CRT monitor win out.

SIGHT AND SOUND

The Mesh fights back in everyday use. Not only is its ViewSonic TFT brighter and sharper than the CTX monitor provided by Systemax, it's also easier to read at its standard resolution of 1280x1024. It goes to show how misleading specs can be: a 19in CRT monitor sounds bigger than a 17in TFT. But because the image doesn't go right to the edge, it translates to around 17 inches of viewable picture. We found that the CTX was only comfortable at the lower resolution of 1152 x 864.

Even then, we had to fiddle around with the settings to get a

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square-ish image. We also had to put up with lacklustre focus towards the edges of the screen. With the ViewSonic, it was a simple matter of pressing one button. What's more, it takes up much less desk space and consumes less energy.

We were also impressed by the Mesh's speakers. The VideoLogic ZXR-750s on with the Systemax look impressive, because they're 'seven-point surround' speakers, compared to the Mesh's Creatives, which are only six-point. But we found that the Creative's delivered a cleaner treble and plenty of bass. However, you'll need to add a separate sound card to reap the full benefits of all these speakers. Both PCs rely on the built-in sound chip on the motherboard.

Where Mesh puts clear blue water between it and Systemax is the sound generated by the cooling fans. By using a nice, large fan to expel air from the back, the fins rotate less quickly and are quieter - it's also a lower, less annoying drone than the Systemax's.

EXPANSION

If you're the sort of person who likes to fiddle around with the insides of a PC, you'll appreciate the Mesh's design. Everything is geared towards maintenance, with the lockable side panel removed by simply lifting a lever. (Systemax still relies on two crosshead screws to secure its panel.) It's similarly tool-free inside, with a clip to keep PCI cards in place and sliders to attach to hard disks and internal drives. Once again, Systemax's reliance on crosshead screws lets it down here.

Whichever you choose, there's room for expansion, with two spare hard disk bays and one empty drive bay for an optical drive such as a CD or DVD available in both systems. Note that the Mesh's spare optical drive bay can't take a full-length drive, as it would collide with connectors on the motherboard. Not that this matters too much: just like Systemax, Mesh has provided a fast CD-RW drive to accompany the DVD rewriters, and we can't think of many reasons to add a third drive.

We could be tempted to add another hard disk when prices drop a little further. Both Systemax and Mesh are sensible enough to include whopping 160GB models. They both use the latest Serial ATA technology, too. Its thinner cables make a PC's insides neater, and it's easier to add a second disk, because SATA drives mean you don't have to fiddle around with 'master' and 'slave' settings.

Another area in which it's nice to have room to grow is memory. Mesh supplies 512MB of RAM as standard, but Systemax tops this by supplying a gargantuan 1GB. Then again, 1GB is a bit of a luxury -you'll only notice it when opening lots of huge files at once. This was the only area in which the Systemax system was faster than Mesh in our 2D benchmarks - but even then, the Inspire only beat its rival by a second.

Both systems are equally impressive when it comes to external expansion. They offer two front-mounted USB 2 ports for easily connecting devices like digital cameras and USB Flash memory drives, with a further four on the back of the Mesh and six on the Systemax. Systemax again edges ahead for FireWire connectors, with a small, four-pin connector to accompany the single large connector found on both machines. Both machines have three spare PCI slots and provide S/P-DIF outputs.

BUYING DECISIONS

On paper, the Matrix has better extras to offer. Top of the list comes Microsoft Works Suite 2003, which includes Word XP, Works 7 (itself a suite of office programs), Encarta and AutoRoute. Systemax's choice of Ability Office 2003, a basic office suite, simply can't compare.

Read on a bit further, though, and you'll see that the Inspire comes with a three-year, on-site warranty, compared with the two-year on-site warranty with the Matrix (though this can be upgraded to three years). Mesh's on-site warranty doesn't cover intermittent faults, so if a phone call can't isolate the fault then the system will probably have to go back to Mesh's shops, rather than being fixed at your house. And Systemax includes delivery in the £999 price; you must pay £39 (£46) to get the Matrix delivered.

These systems are so close that there's hardly a whisker between them. In the end, we gave the award to Systemax. For £999 before VAT, an Athlon 64 processor, a fast DVD writer and a TV card and a three-year on-site warranty is incredible value. For this reason, despite the Mesh having a nicer monitor, we gave the Systemax a Top 50 Best Buy.