Product Reviews

The large range of components gives manufacturers a lot of freedom when building a PC. This Mesh may have the same Athlon 64 3500+ processor and nVidia GeForce 6800 GT graphics card as the Evesham Axis 35/939, above, but Mesh deviates quite a lot elsewhere.

Where Evesham has opted for a more affordable package, Mesh has decided to cram its PC with top-quality components. At the base level this includes 1GB of memory and a 250GB SATA hard disk, which is more than enough storage for most needs. Should this start to get full, there's always the Sony DVD+/-RW drive for archiving files.

Performance-wise, the Mesh was a few points ahead of its Evesham rival, achieving 4,508 in PCMark04 and 180 in SYSmark2004. The scores show that it's a very powerful PC, as you'd expect with these components.

Graphics performance was nothing to be ashamed of either: its 3DMark03 score of 11,098 shows that it's more than capable of handling the latest games.

The Sony SDM S94B 19" LCD screen is a high-quality

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monitor with a very good picture. Input on our review machine was through DVI, which ensured the best picture quality. With a native resolution of 1,280x1,024 it's a good match for the graphics card, as you'll be able to run games at maximum resolution.

Performance isn't the be-all and end-all of PCs, though, and the Matrix64 has other features worth considering. The Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card is better than the traditional onboard affair and has inputs and outputs for every bit of audio equipment you're likely to own. It will be of particular interest to budding musicians and those who want to watch movies on their PC. To make the most of this the PC is supplied with a set of Creative Inspire 7700 7.1 speakers.

Connectivity is good on this PC. The Audigy's front panel provides a FireWire port, while the case's front plate houses another two ports. The rear of the machine is similarly well decked out with two more FireWire ports, four USB2.0 and a network port. A wireless adaptor rounds the package off nicely.

Inside the PC there's room for further expansion. Two memory sockets are free in the unlikely event that you'd want to upgrade, while two PCI slots leave room for more expansion cards.

Mesh also provides respectable software that includes Microsoft Works 7, Pinnacle Studio 9, Pinnacle Instant DVD and Intervideo WinDVD.

The extra components that the Mesh has over the Evesham mean that it's a few hundred pounds more expensive. Choosing between them depends on your needs. If you're editing video or creating music, the Mesh is the natural choice.