Product Reviews

Mesh's Matrix Titan FX57 G70 looks like other PCs, but a cutting-edge system lurks beneath its faade. Sitting in an Asus SLI motherboard is a 2.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 FX57 processor. Dual-processor Athlon 64s are significantly faster than the FX57 in applications designed to use two cores, but in single-threaded programs the FX57 is king.

The £1,200 Mesh system in this month's PC Price Test uses a dual-core processor and scores 178 in our multithreaded video-encoding benchmark, while the Matrix Titan FX57 manages only a respectable 125. The image-editing test is single-threaded, though, and the FX57 blasts though this with a record-breaking 150. As games are generally single-threaded, the FX57 is the definitive gaming processor.

The Matrix's gaming credentials are further boosted by an nVidia GeForce 7800GTX graphics card. As well as producing more

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frames per second than any other card, the 7800GTX incorporates a host of new technology to render scenes with more detail and visual effects. In the unlikely event that you find the breakneck frame rate too sedate, you can fit a second 7800GTX and connect them through an SLI bridge for yet more performance.

The 19"ViewSonic VX924 LCD has a maximum resolution of 1,280x1,024. It's unlikely you'll see a significant performance increase from an SLI upgrade at this resolution, but this is still a first-class gaming monitor. Colours are rich and vibrant with a smooth transition from light to dark. It is also the first LCD monitor to have a 4ms response time, which eliminates ghosting and motion blur, although it's hard to tell the difference between this and an 8ms monitor.

With such expensive components at the core - the processor alone costs nearly £700 - Mesh keeps peripheral devices to a minimum. Creative Inspire T7900 surround-sound speakers add a punchy extra dimension to your games, but beware of the trailing wires. A wireless keyboard and mouse combination from Logitech round off the bundle.

Cutting-edge technology rarely comes cheap, and the Matrix Titan FX57 certainly doesn't. It's not the fastest system we've seen, but its processor, graphics card and monitor make it the most suitable for gaming. If you've got the cash you won't be disappointed, but anyone looking for value for money should read our PC Price Test.