PC Review: Mesh Elite E6600 Express system

In an attempt to hook those with an interest in the forthcoming Windows Vista operating system, Mesh is offering a free upgrade to Windows Vista Premium with its latest PC. This upgrade will, of course, only come into effect when Vista is actually launched; at present, this is looking like some time in January 2007 for consumers.

Mesh has chosen a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU to power the system.

It’s not Intel’s fastest dual-core processor (that title belongs to the 2.93GHz X6800 Core 2 Extreme processor) but as indicated by the Sysmark 2004 SE and PCmark05 scores of 308 and 7,014 respectively, it’s a perfectly capable model and better value for money than the X6800. The 2GB of DDR2 Ram supporting the processor will also be welcomed by Vista when the upgrade comes into effect.

Nvidia’s Geforce 7950GT graphics card seems to be the favourite among system integrators at the moment, and it’s not difficult to see why.

Unlike the vastly more expensive Geforce 7950G2X, which houses two separate GPUs, this model is a good mix of value for money and performance. The 3Dmark05 score of 9,414 demonstrates that, although not the fastest we’ve seen, this computer will be more than capable of running the latest games at decent resolutions.

Mesh has kept the price of this PC down by including a 19in Sony SDM-HS95PR monitor as opposed to a 20in model. Although we have no qualms over the quality of this monitor, its native resolution of 1,280x1,024 means the graphics card won’t be able to demonstrate its full power. A 20in TFT with a higher native resolution of 1,600x1,200 would have been a far better option, even if it pushed up the price a bit.

The motherboard, a P5N32-SLI from Asus, is passively cooled, but the benefits of having a fanless model are cancelled out by the not-so-quiet Intel CPU fan. It isn’t massively noisy, but in a quiet room you’ll definitely hear it whirring away. With quieter CPU fans relatively cheap, we’d recommend upgrading this one.

In terms of features the motherboard isn’t lacking. Among other goodies you get full Raid support, four serial ATA (Sata) ports, 2GB Lan connections and even a built-in hardware firewall. A second x16 PCI Express slot means you could upgrade to quad-SLI by investing in two Geforce 7950G2X cards.

However, with the current-SLI drivers delivering relatively poor performance gains over standard SLI (see our review of Mesh’s quad-SLI PC), we’d recommend sticking with the single 7950GT for the moment.

Other items include a single 300GB hard drive, two DVD drives (one a dual-layer writer the other a DVD-Rom), a Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 surround-sound speaker system and a Logitech cordless keyboard and mouse. Microsoft Works 8.5 and a selection of Cyberlink DVD applications make up the software bundle.

At £1,049, Mesh has priced this system very competitively, especially considering the free upgrade to Vista Premium. However, considering the powerful graphics and fast processor will appeal to gamers, it’s a pity Mesh couldn’t include a 20in TFT to really show what it’s capable of.

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