Mesh Elite 3.4GHz Pulse

See PC Pro product update: Mesh Elite 3.4 Pulse

Coinciding with the release of the Prescott core comes the end of the line for the Northwood Pentium 4. It's not going without one final burst of speed, however, culminating in the 3.4GHz processor on which the Elite is based. But it isn't good news for the old core's final fling.

The basic system is well up to Mesh's usual standards. Inside, tidy cabling is evident, using airflow-friendly round cables where possible. There are two free DIMM sockets, three empty PCI slots and a liberal sprinkling of USB connectors.

A PC at this price needs to perform all round, and we've no complaints over its gaming potential, with a 256MB Radeon 9800XT card sitting in the AGP port. There's also 1GB of PC3200 RAM - Mesh specifically uses Corsair TwinX DIMMs on this occasion - working synchronously with the processor's 800MHz FSB and giving plenty of headroom for even the most demanding applications.

Fixed storage is generously catered for too, with twin 160GB Maxtor SATA hard disks configured in a RAID array. With 8MB buffers, they're fast too.

Mesh includes the excellent Iiyama ProLite E481 TFT; with a 19in diagonal and good performance across the board, this makes a welcome addition. Equally impressive, as long you aren't put off by its sheer bulk, is the Creative Inspire T7700 7.1 speaker setup, which is allied to a Sound Blaster Audigy ZS Platinum. Together, these will make light work of DVD soundtracks and music production. The Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse match the other peripherals, with their only problem being the need to replace the batteries every two or three months.

So far, so good, but when it comes to the processor itself, it all goes horribly wrong. Given the billions of dollars and huge technical obstacles involved in building new fabrication plants and starting to produce a CPU on a new, smaller 90nm process, it follows that Intel wouldn't be introducing Prescott without a reason. And the reason, when it came to benchmarking the Elite, was very clear: the machine had numerous problems with instability and inexplicably poor performance.

Repeated attempts between ourselves and Mesh's very capable engineers failed to solve the problem, leaving us unable to get meaningful benchmark results. Until we see a fast, working system, our suspicions will remain that Northwood at 3.4GHz is stretching the 0.13-micron process to the limit. It's true that the Prescott core is little faster than Northwood at a given clock speed, but it's equally true that, whereas Northwood is now extended beyond its reach, for Prescott 3.4GHz is an easy warm-up trot on the way to higher speeds.

Looking at Mesh's own Matrix64 3400+ Ultra (see A List), which bundles a scorching Athlon 64 3400+ into a superb overall package for just £100 more, we'd definitely go for the AMD system.

If you want a high-end Pentium system, it appears Northwood is no longer the answer. You can either wait for a 3.4GHz Pentium 4E - (the E denotes the Prescott core) - which should be available in the next three months or, if you're rolling in cash, the newest Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, which also zips along at 3.4GHz. Alternatively, Mesh will supply this PC with a Northwood 3.2GHz Pentium 4 (coupled with an Asus P4P800 Deluxe motherboard) for £1,499.

Author: Ross Burridge