Mesh Elite GTX 460 review

PCs toting Nvidia graphics cards have been scarce this year, and Fermi has done little to change that. That's until this month's release of the GeForce GTX 460, however, and Mesh is the first to take full advantage with its Elite GTX 460 desktop system.

The GTX 460 is Nvidia's mid-range reworking of the first failed Fermis, and it despite a lower price and much lower power draw than its bigger cousins, it performs admirably. After blasting its way through our Low and Medium quality tests at triple-figure frame rates, the GTX 460 powered this Mesh PC to an average of 59fps in our High quality test at 1,600 x 1,200 - as fast as we've seen at this price point.

Upping the settings to Very High still produced a 34fps average, and at the TFT's native 1,920 x 1,080 resolution a score of 29fps is impressive. In comparison, the £779 exc VAT Chillblast Fusion Midgard, with its ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card, scored a slightly higher 32fps. Nvidia is finding its feet again at last and the Mesh enjoys the benefit.

Sitting beside the new Nvidia card is an ageing Intel Core i5-750, but this 45nm processor certainly doesn't perform like an old codger: Mesh has overclocked it from 2.66GHz to 3.6GHz for a benchmark result of 2.41. To get higher than that you'll need to pay more - the £760 exc VAT Yoyotech Warbird i750X scored 2.7 by overclocking the same processor to 4GHz, for example.

Mesh has fitted these parts into a Thermaltake V5 chassis. It's a bit early to call it a trend, but we've seen several PC cases featuring carrying handles built into the roof, and the V5 follows suit. It's a well-built chassis, designed for gamers at LAN parties but it has wider appeal. Along with the handle, the top of the case is home to a pair of USB 2 ports and audio jacks, and an eSATA port, while the rear has eight USB 2 ports alongside a pair of PS/2 inputs, an S/PDIF socket and Gigabit Ethernet. It's a solid feature set, albeit with no USB 3 provision for the future.

There's a decent amount of upgrade potential throughout. The five spare 5.25in bays and pair of empty 3.5in bays are all fitted with tool-free entry mechanisms, and the motherboard provides a vacant PCI Express x16 slot, as well as a single PCI Express x1 slot and a trio of empty PCI sockets. Mesh supplies 4GB of DDR3, with two empty DIMM sockets - although one is partially blocked off by the fan attached to the CPU cooler. A 1TB hard disk and DVD writer, with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit as the operating system, round off the spec sheet.

In other areas, though, the Thermaltake is more ordinary. There's no motherboard tray, for instance, and Mesh hasn't put much stock in keeping its system tidy: ugly, multicoloured cables snake out of the cheap EZCool PSU and, with little effort made to lash them together, trail untidily around the interior.

The Mesh grew a little noisy when pushed hard but it isn't too bad, and such weaknesses are tempered by the low price. At £680 exc VAT, it remains affordable for a high-end base unit, but matches or exceeds similarly priced systems for performance and build quality, and the chassis is a particular strong point. With its brand-new Fermi graphics card and a well-overclocked processor, it's an impressive all-round package.

Author: Mike Jennings