Product Reviews

Evesham has pitched the Axis 35/939 at the upper end of the home computer market. With a budget of £1,300 there should be no performance-hindering components or disappointing peripherals. Systems at this price should be technically balanced and provide more than enough power to cope with today's most demanding applications.

The Axis 35/939 is powered by the new socket 939 AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor combined with 512MB PC3200 RAM. Although failing to run our standard SYSmark2004 benchmark software, it notched up 4,422 in PCMark04. This was just slightly off the Mesh system reviewed this month, but impressive nonetheless.

Housed in the Evesham 'splat' case, this may not be the prettiest system, but it is practical, with two USB2.0, one FireWire and audio ports on the front for easy access. A further four USB2.0 ports and a single FireWire port can be found at the back alongside full 7.1 surround-sound outputs including S/PDIF optical and coaxial ports. Sound is fed to the latter by an onboard Realtech ALC850 7.1 channel processor.

An nVidia GeForce 6800 256MB graphics card provides superb gaming and entertainment performance,

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as is illustrated by a commendable score of 9,009 in 3DMark03. Gaming enthusiasts will have nothing to complain about here.

At this price you should expect a 19" LCD screen, and Evesham delivers. The stylish ViewSonic VX910, with a native resolution of 1,280x1,024, is an excellent choice. It displays a crisp image and vivid colours, while the DVI input, coupled with the GeForce's DVI output, ensures that the signal arrives clean.

The 200GB Western Digital SATA hard disk provides ample storage unless you intend to do some heavyweight video processing, in which case there's no such thing as enough. A Sony DWD-18A dual-layer DVD writer drive provides further storage options - if you can track down the blank discs - and a second basic DVD-ROM drive makes disc-to-disc copying possible.

Evesham supplies the Axis 35/939 with an excellent wireless Microsoft keyboard and mouse combo. Both are comfortable to use and solidly built. The tilt mouse is particularly impressive, with its smooth rather than notched scrolling action. Unfortunately, the Axis 35/939 includes only a limited software bundle.

Evesham offers a choice of two distinct speaker systems with the Axis 35/939. To get the most from DVDs and the latest games titles, Creative's 6700 surround system is well suited. However, for music the alternative Altec Lansing 2100 high-powered 2.1 system might be more appropriate.

There is no one component that separates the Evesham Axis 35/939 from the Mesh Matrix 64 3500+ GT. A £300 price gap seems extreme given that both systems are based on an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor. Evesham has built a slightly leaner system, making it better suited for the average user who wants a PC for a bit of everything.