Mesh Matrix 64 FX55 Pro

No-one can argue with Mesh's credentials when it comes to building fast PCs. The Matrix 64 3800+ Ultimate is currently our favourite, with blistering pace helping it secure top spot. The only thing Mesh doesn't do is fancy cases, with this high-end machine dressed in the standard black Mesh garb. Fortunately, this conservative attitude isn't reflected in the choice of internal components.

Top of the list is the brand new Athlon 64 FX-55 from AMD. This is a replacement for the FX-53, with a 2.6GHz core clock speed rather than the FX-53's 2.4GHz. This is the only change though, and an unsurprising one at that: overclockers have long boasted that they've managed to get their FX-53 up to 2.6GHz.

The extra processing power comes at a price, with the FX-55 churning out 104W of heat (equivalent to a 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4). As such, it needs significantly more cooling power. Mesh chooses an Akasa heatsink to cool the CPU in this machine, with a huge AK-855. Even with the fan spinning at 3,800rpm, the motherboard still reports the CPU to be running at around 60C when idling.

Being an FX chip the core clock speed is unlocked. We overclocked the Mesh using the motherboard's BIOS; this pushed frequencies an extra 5 per cent to 2.78GHz, yielding an extra 4.5fps (frames per second) in Unreal Tournament 2004 and pushing the total to 100fps.

Considering that this was at our standard resolution of 1,280 x 1,024, it's an incredible score, and much of it is thanks to the extra processing power; we saw two months ago that next-generation cards are currently limited by the speed of the processor in Unreal Tournament 2004.

Of course, a lot of this gaming performance is down to the GeForce 6800 GT card from Leadtek, cooled by a hefty top-and-bottom heatsink. It managed 74fps in Halo at the standard resolution, and 57fps at 1,600 x 1,200. In fact, Mesh would like to ship the Matrix 64 with an even faster card, but with high-end GeForce 6800 Ultras and ATi Radeon X800 XT cards currently in such short supply this proved impossible.

Whether playing games, listening to music or watching DVDs, we doubt you'll complain about the Matrix's audio setup. The Inspire T7900 7.1 speaker set coupled to the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 card can create quite a sound stage when all eight speakers are put into use, with the only drawback being the sheer number of wires.

There's plenty of space for storage thanks to a 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 hard disk, but this drive isn't just about gigabytes: it includes NCQ (native command queuing) and a 16MB buffer. But NCQ is a next-generation Serial ATA II technology, and like the Evesham Xcelsior, the Mesh's motherboard chipset, a VIA K8T800, hasn't caught up yet so can't take advantage.

It was no shock then when the Matrix rattled through our disk-intensive database tests in record time, but surprisingly this turn of pace wasn't matched in the rest of our benchmarks. We know that the combination of an Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard and AMD's FX-53 processor can be a potent match, as displayed as in the super-quick Alienware last month, which scored 3.07 overall. The Matrix's overall score of 2.60 is therefore disappointing.

Taking into account the cutting-edge components, particularly the FX-55, we were expecting stunning performance and an unprecedentedly high application benchmark score. But the beta BIOS on our machine held the system to a restrained 2.60 and lead to instability, hence the preview status of this review.

This score is bound to improve quickly as Mesh and Asus work on updates, and once these problems are resolved there's plenty to recommend the Mesh. A rear 120mm fan keeps the tidy innards cool without creating too much noise. The DVD writer is capable of writing to every format except DVD-RAM. Both front and back are strewn with ports for sound, USB and FireWire, and there's even an 802.11g card included for high-speed wireless networking.