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Evesham's Solar 8600GTS desktop PC contains Nvidia's new mid-range Geforce 8600GTS card that costs a shade over £100 when bought separately.
Like the rest of Nvidia's 8000-series cards, it supports Microsoft's DirectX 10 graphics specification, which should eventually result in glossier and more detailed looking games than DirectX 9 software.
Windows Vista Home Premium comes preinstalled, which is essential to take advantage of this card since DirectX 10 in a Vista-exclusive standard.
Evesham has chosen the Geforce 8600GTS with 256MB of Ram to power the Solar. It is the fastest of Nvidia's new mid-range cards and runs at the standard reference settings of 675MHz for the core and 1GHz (2GHz effective) for the DDR3 memory.
Early indications show 8600GTS' have proved good overclockers, so there's definitely room for improvement should you want to tinker with it.
Combined with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 processor, ticking along at 2.13GHz, and 2GB DDR2 Ram, the system scored an impressive 10,560 in 3Dmark05 – a score reserved for £1,500 systems in our labs just six months ago.
In our real world gaming test, FEAR scored 105fps (frames per second), which highlights this system will handle any game at high resolutions with ease.
Although it's no slouch, a score of 5,594 in PCmark05 represents average overall system performance from a £900 machine.
The system is based around a Foxconn-branded motherboard using Intel's P965 chipset. This provides 7.1 audio outputs (should you want to upgrade to a surround sound system) and gigabit Lan, while six USB2 and two Firewire ports are split between the front and the rear of the chassis. There's also an E-Sata port for high-speed external hard disks at the rear.
The motherboard only has one PCI-Express slot, so adding another graphics card to get an SLI arrangement is out of the question.
Evesham provides a 22in widescreen from Iiyama with a black bezel and inbuilt speakers. Its 1,680x1,050 resolution provides lots of desktop real estate. Response time is quoted at 5ms and contrast ratio is equally impressive at 1,000:1. The styling is simple, if a bit bland, and disappointingly there's only an analogue (VGA) connection.
The black levels aren't particularly good and there was a hint of backlight bleed from the sides during testing. However, picture quality was generally good and overall we're impressed Evesham had squeezed it into the £900 budget.
The case is made from a mixture of black metal and silver plastic, with a large fan on the rear and vents on one side. The system is a bit noisy during start up, but once into Windows it remains cool and quiet - the 350W power supply is particularly hushed.
Roxio DVD Media Creator and Microsoft Works 8.5 are included on the software front. The Solar also packs a 320GB hard disk and Sony 18x DVD dual layer rewriter. A simple, cordless Logitech keyboard and mouse are basic 2.1 Creative Labs Inspire T3100 speakers complete an uninspiring array of peripherals.
Should anything go wrong, Evesham's generous three year warranty (two year on site, third year return to base) is on hand.
Nit picking the machine for flaws at this price is difficult, but Evesham could have supplied a TV tuner as standard; although adding one yourself won't cost too much.
Ultimately, Nvidia's 8600GTS provides great performance for the price and Evesham has used the right balance of components that won't disappoint the home user. What's more, it's the cheapest DirectX 10 machine we've tested to and is ready for the rest of the year's games using the new technology.
See also:
A DirectX 10 card that packs a real punch for the money 20 Apr 2007
A touchscreen kitchen or living room PC with notebook innards 22 Mar 2007
With impressive performance and features, it's hard to knock the Mesh Elite 26 Feb 2007All Desktops
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