Mesh 7 review
in Desktop PCs
Verdict
A blistering PC in an adventurous chassis, but the price reserves it for the richest of style-conscious gamers
Review Date: 19 Jan 2010
Reviewed By: Mike Jennings
Price when reviewed: £2,339 (£2,748 inc VAT)
Features & Design
![]()
Value for Money
![]()
Performance
![]()
The PC inside has clearly been assembled to match the monster chassis. Intel's Core i7-920 processor has been bumped from its stock 2.66GHz speed to 3.6GHz, and a benchmark score of 2.56 indicates the level of power available. The only recent PC to beat that was the Chillblast Fusion Eyefinity, which scored 2.8.
It's also aided by 6GB of 1,600MHz DDR3 RAM and a 64GB Samsung SSD, which keeps Windows 7 Home Premium feeling sprightly. The extra 1TB hard disk and Blu-ray drive complete a tempting enthusiast specification.
Gamers will be pleased with the ATI Radeon HD 5970. Our original review revealed it to be the fastest card we've tested, and the dual GPUs proved themselves again here: the Mesh 7's score of 56fps in our 1,920 x 1,200 Very High quality Crysis test shows a level of headroom that should cope with the top new games for some time to come.
Unfortunately, these powerful components fall prey to the system's rudimentary cooling. We found that the processor peaked at a temperature of 91ûC in a stress-test, with the GPU running just 6ûC cooler. Both of these figures may be slightly lower than each chip's maximum operating temperature, but it's still hardly encouraging, and we wouldn't want to add a second graphics card into this stifling environment.
Thankfully, the peripherals are better. The Iiyama Prolite E2407HDSD is a perfectly serviceable TFT with decent colour reproduction and sharpness, and the Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse are basic but extremely comfortable. It's a little disappointing, though, that Mesh couldn't find room in its extravagant budget to include even a basic set of speakers.
For all of the Mesh 7's strengths, though, the inclusion of Thermaltake's chassis - which costs £442 exc VAT on its own - pushes the price of the whole package to £2,339 exc VAT, which looks ludicrous when compared to rival machines.
The A-Listed Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire, for instance, comes with a traditional ATX tower chassis, but the Antec Nine Hundred Two remains a well-built piece of kit. It's also a quick machine, with its benchmark scores impressive, even though it can't quite match up to the speed of the Mesh. Crucially, it's also over £1,000 cheaper, provided you don't mind trading form for function.
So the Mesh 7 may be a fast PC, and it certainly looks stunning, but its sky-high price - along with occasionally suspect build quality and design issues - keeps it far from a PC Pro recommendation. Unless you're the kind of person who buys a PC to make a style statement, you can find similarly specified machines for a whole lot less cash.
Author: Mike Jennings
From around the web
(In)Sanity!
Given Mesh's appalling after-sales service and shocking customer service levels, why would any sane person give them even £240 never mind £2400! The forums are full of stories where people have spent £1000+ and tried for over 3,6, 9 months to get effective communication and warranty repairs.
By incognitii on 20 Jan 2010 ![]()
Censorship of Comments
30 mins ago I posted a critical comment re Mesh in response to this article. It has already been removed. Paymasters,huh?
By incognitii on 20 Jan 2010 ![]()
re: Censorship of Comments
Removed or simply not being posted? Once, I've written some overly technical comment and I could not post it, because the server software filters misidentified as h**king.
By stasi47 on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
Good Experiences
I do realise that some have had problems with Mesh but I have not had any problems with their PCs or their support. I bought my last PC from them 2 years ago. My brother bought one 12 months ago and similarily has not had any problems. I have no relationship with Mesh.
By BidAuto on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
RE: Censorship of comments
Just to clarify, none of the comments on this review have been deleted or modified in any way - it just takes our system a while to process them, so that's why they sometimes don't appear immediately.
By Mikey_Jennings on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
re: Censorship of Comments
Thanks for responding Mikey. Apologies if I have done you an injustice, but my OP posted as shown, almost immediately, then 30 mins later had disappeared! It did not restore until after I had made my second post.
To @BidAuto: I am glad you have not had any problems - I and several of my friends/relatives have. However my point was: given the litany of horror stories - how could you even consider spending such a vast sum with such an unreliable vendor?
By incognitii on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
re: Censorship of Comments
Thanks for responding Mikey. Apologies if I have done you an injustice, but my OP posted as shown, almost immediately, then 30 mins later had disappeared! It did not restore until after I had made my second post.
To @BidAuto: I am glad you have not had any problems - I and several of my friends/relatives have. However my point was: given the litany of horror stories - how could you even consider spending such a vast sum with such an unreliable vendor?
By incognitii on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
re: Censorship of Comments
Thanks for responding Mikey. Apologies if I have done you an injustice, but my OP posted as shown, almost immediately, then 30 mins later had disappeared! It did not restore until after I had made my second post.
To @BidAuto: I am glad you have not had any problems - I and several of my friends/relatives have. However my point was: given the litany of horror stories - how could you even consider spending such a vast sum with such an unreliable vendor?
By incognitii on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
You can say that again
I cannot believe so many different people are having the identical problem posting to the PC Pro comments pages - namely their postings appearing twice or even three times. This has been very noticeable since the website overhaul. Clearly it's a problem with the PC Pro website - perhaps related to the one where postings disappear and re-appear - and really, it should have been addressed long ago.
By Noghar on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
mesh never ever
their service is crap and i would not bye anything from them again
By soutts on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
Not for me either
I was so impressed with my Mesh computer that, when it died, I bought another. Then realised I had paid for a 3 year "Premium" warranty. Sent it back and they quoted me over £200 to fix it because "People have been smoking near it and it is that contamination that has caused the failure". Didn't say anything in the sales blurb about only using it in a Clean Room. Cost me £60 to get it back and most of the stuff inside is still shiny. I have no way to resolve this problem so it is sat in the garage and will be used for spares.
I'll never pay Mesh another penny in the future.
Shame really
By Haighy on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
Dodgy Mesh of Forum Posts.
Never had a single problem with MESH. I've bought three on the trot. If you look at the forums you'll see loads of comments about other manufacturers/system builders that are just as negative. BTW, for a "magazine" site that's name has the word "PRO" in it, you guys are looking a lot less than "pro" with this dodgy comments system. How many people have to complain before you deal with it?
By CraigieDD on 21 Jan 2010 ![]()
Build your own
I prefer to build my own.Not only because it's sometimes a bit cheaper.It's just that i prefer to choose what components go into it.
By Jaberwocky on 22 Jan 2010 ![]()
Mesh 'quality'
I really, REALLY wish PC Pro would include customer satisfaction survey results along with the PC's they review/push - as without them I believe the reviews are next to worthless.
Mesh are, without exception, the worst PC manufacturer I have ever come across. Many, many, many people are of that same opinion - yet customer satisfaction never seems to be taken account of in reviews.
My own experience of Mesh is that their 'service' (I use the term loosely) is SO shoddy, incompetent, disinterested and unyielding as to effectively be fraudulent.
A brand new £2,000 PC sitting in it's delivery box, unused from day one as it refuses to boot, plus an armful of emails, and STILL no replacement, no fix and no refund, (after many months) stand testament to that.
By Mr_John_T on 24 Jan 2010 ![]()
D G
Like Haighy I'm on my second MESH - never again ! Had the hard drive replaced under "at home" warranty - the new one was faulty from the start. Sent the machine back and they "fixed it" yeah right ! When it came back the cables had been re-routed accross the front of one of the cooling fans and the connector for the fans wasn't pushed home. The cables were simply bundled together with a cable tie and one of them was even wrapped tightly round a bunch of others - MMMM isn't that dangerous ? The hard drive is now getting noisy again after only a few weeks but this time I'm replacing it myself - at least I will know it's done properly ! Talking to MESH is a waste of time as you simply sit in a premium rate "QUEUE" but call the sales line ansd it's answered immediately. Maybe that's the answer - if everybody calls the sales line and jams it up maybe they will take notice !
By alpinecharmer on 19 May 2010 ![]()
advertisement
- Home-taught skills lead to security success
- Fusion Garage Q&A: Grid10 tablet "makes or breaks" us
- Dell: tablets aren't killing PCs
- Britain's 15-year-old Excel champion
- Q&A: the problems with Amazon's Appstore
- Q&A: How 4G auction money could improve rural coverage
- Q&A: why children need a balanced "diet" of tech
- Q&A: why we're getting more liberal with content sharing
- Q&A: can a £15 computer rekindle the UK tech industry?
- MP: it will take two years to fix Digital Economy Act
- Laptop bag reviews: nine tested
- Sony VAIO T Series Ultrabook review: first look
- Revealed: the military standards and robots HP uses to test its laptops
- Windows 8: multi-monitors and double standards?
- Why is TalkTalk's year-old porn filter suddenly big news?
- Why are laptop screens so far behind mobiles?
- HP EliteBook Folio review: first look
- The shoebox-sized all-in-one printer
- Forget the Ultrabook: here comes the HP Sleekbook
- HP Spectre XT review: first look
advertisement






