Mesh Computers Ice 5 5750 HD Wins PC Advisor Recommended

It's review time again, and this time Mesh Computers have picked up a PC Advisor Recommended award with the Ice 5 5750HD. The Ice 5 was praised for "excellent value for money, with its impressive spec including a Core i5 750 CPU, a full-HD 22in monitor, 1TB of storage and a generous software bundle."

Check out the full review written by Paul Monckton (which can also be found on PC Advisor's site) below:

Mesh's £739 Ice5 5750 HD offers excellent value for money. Its impressive spec includes a Core i5 750 CPU, a full-HD 22in monitor, a terabyte (1TB) of storage and a generous software bundle that includes a CyberLink suite.

Mesh has accidentally submitted the least expensive PC of the group, if only by £10. Originally specified with a Radeon 5770 HD graphics card, our Mesh Ice5 5750 HD review sample shipped with the 5750 HD instead. This resulted in a noticeable, although not extreme, reduction in gaming framerates. If you want to pay the extra, and we strongly suggest you do, the Mesh Ice5 5770 HD is available for £749 and should deliver a similar gaming performance to our Best Buy Arbico.

If space is at a premium, you'll appreciate the Mesh Ice5 5750 HD's diminutive system case. Note that this compact machine has less room for upgrades than the other PCs here as a result. The hard drive has been mounted vertically, for example, while the rather basic Asus motherboard has only one PCI Express x16 slot. You won't be able to add a second graphics card later, which makes the £749 Ice5 5770 HD all the more attractive.

Verdict

The Mesh Ice5 5750 HD may prove difficult to upgrade and its one-year warranty looks a little stingy, but this excellent PC offers better value for money than any other contender.

Mesh Computers begin 2010 with a Review Win

Happy new year 2010 from Mesh Computers, and its shaping up to be a good year already with a review win for the Matrix II 925 MX. Expertreviews.co.uk gave the PC a full 5 out of 5 stars rating, with Computer Shopper also heaping praise on the machine in the February '10 issue.

"Mesh's Matrix II is stunningly quick in Windows and ideal if you do a lot of video or photo editing"

For the full review written by Alan Lu at expertreviews.co.uk take a look below:

Mesh's Matrix II 925 MX is a real powerhouse thanks to a 2.8GHz AMD Phenom II X4 925 processor and 4GB of RAM. This combination meant this PC did very well in our application benchmarks. Its overall score of 101 was the best we've seen for a PC at this price. The one downside is that the processor fan is quite loud. This can easily be replaced with a quieter fan if you find the noise distracting, though.

The Matrix II 925 MX was less impressive in our game tests. Its integrated Radeon 4200 graphics managed only single-digit scores in our gaming benchmarks. A more powerful PCI Express x16 graphics card can be added to boost performance, but the 300W power supply may not provide enough energy for power-hungry graphics cards as well as other upgrades and may need to be replaced.

Although the Matrix II isn't brimming with as many internal expansion options as other PCs we've seen, there's space for another optical drive. There are also two 3?in bays, both of which can be used for internal devices such as hard disks or external devices such as a memory card reader or floppy drive. Unlike other PCs we've seen, it has enough SATA ports to connect all the devices it has bays for. There are two free RAM slots and a massive 16GB of RAM can be fitted.

There are two PCI slots and a PCI Express x1 slot for accommodating peripherals such as TV tuners or wireless adaptors. There are also coaxial and optical S/PDIF ports for connecting a surround-sound amplifier.

Mesh's Matrix II 925 MX is a great PC if you need fast application performance on a budget. However, you'll need to budget more for a dedicated graphics card to replace its weak integrated chip if you want to play games and it's irritatingly loud, so it's not perfect.

Mesh Computers win PC Advisor Best Buy Award with the Mesh Ice 7 DX11

Mesh Computers have won the PC Advisor Best Buy Award for the Mesh Ice DX11. Check out the full review below from PC Advisor, written by Paul Monckton

The Mesh Ice 7 DX11 Windows 7 desktop PC offers staggering gaming performance with an HD 5850 chip under its belt.


With the release of AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cards, we're seeing the first DirectX 11.0-capable PCs submitted to our Test Centre. It's no surprise that all four of the new PCs featured here include a 1GB Radeon HD 5850 card, including the Mesh Ice 7 DX11.

The strongest overall performance is delivered by the Mesh Ice 7 DX11. Despite its Intel Core i7 920 processor having now been discontinued, it's still widely available and offers great value for money. The performance of this chip is superb, propelling the Mesh to a WorldBench 6 speed score of 139 points.

A 6GB allocation of DDR3 RAM is provided, fitted into an Asus P6T SE motherboard. This is a good offering - the two machines based on Intel's newer Core i7 860 CPU come with only 4GB - yet the price of the Mesh Ice 7 DX11 remains reasonable.

Gaming performance is very good indeed, and the Mesh Ice 7 DX11's HD 5850 delivers a noticeable increase in performance over the HD 4890 found in older systems in this price category. It comes with support for DirectX 11.0, which is necessary for several forthcoming games as well as some new functions built into Windows 7.

A pair of 500GB hard drives are provided in a Raid 0 configuration. This setup offers enhanced performance over single-drive offerings, but it takes only one drive to fail in the Mesh Ice 7 DX11 for you to lose the data stored on both.

The Mesh Ice 7 DX11's 22in full-HD monitor delivers high-quality images. You don't get a Blu-ray drive, but this remains an excellent PC for both work and gaming.

Mesh Matrix II 925 HD wins the Best Buy Award from Computer Shopper!

Mesh Computers have done it again! This time at Computer Shopper, with the Matrix II 925, scoring a Best Buy award.

Take a look at the full review from Computer Shopper by Kat Orphanides, posted online at Expertreviews.co.uk.

Mesh's Matrix II 925 HD isn't the fastest PC £650 can buy, but it's a well-rounded system. The lack of processing power comes from the choice of a 2.8GHz Phenom II X4 925, which can't compete with the Intel Core i5 processors in similarly priced PCs. However, Mesh has realised that few people need the power of a Core i5, and has instead used the money saved to install a few more useful components.

One is the huge 1TB hard disk, which should cater for all your storage needs. Next is the great 22in Iiyama E2208HDS monitor. It's one of our favourite budget monitors, with accurate if slightly pale colours that retain their intensity from most viewing angles. Its full HD resolution is a perfect match for the Matrix II's Blu-ray drive for watching HD movies. It's easy to connect surround-sound speakers, too. The Radeon HD 4850 graphics card lacks the power to satisfy serious gamers, but is beefy enough to play the latest games at reasonable quality levels. The comfortable keyboard and mouse are reliable wired models from Logitech.

The Matrix's compact microATX case reduces fan noise to a soft hum. It doesn't take up much space, either. There isn't much room for upgrades, but the Asus M2N68-VM motherboard provides just about everything you'll need, including eight-channel audio and an eSATA port. The only notable omission is FireWire. The graphics card blocks the only PCI-E x1 slot, but doesn't get in the way of the SATA ports. Cables are all neatly routed and there are two free PCI slots. The motherboard has two free memory slots, which can be used to upgrade from 4GB to a total of 8GB of RAM.

Unless you really need the extra grunt of a Core i5 processor, this is a great buy for £650. It even comes with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium installed. The Matrix II 925 HD wins our Best Buy award.

Mesh Matrix II 550BE Wins PC Advisor Best Buy Award!

The accolades keep rolling in for Mesh Computers at the moment, with the Mesh Matrix II 550BE winning the PC Advisor Best Buy Award. The Verdict was that "The Mesh Matrix II 550BE PCA offers unbeatable value and class-leading performance. If you want a gaming PC for less than £500, nothing else here comes close."

See the full review from PC Advisor written by Paul Monckton below:

Systems at this price point always involve compromises - a meaty processor or a powerful graphics card will obliterate a £500 budget. But the Mesh Matrix II 550BE PCA not only achieves the highest WorldBench 6 real-world speed score of the group, it also provides staggering gaming performance that leaves the competition stuttering and flickering in its wake.

We were somewhat surprised to find an AMD CPU under the hood of our Best Buy machine, and the Mesh Matrix II 550BE PCA's 3.1GHz Phenom II X2 500 BE marks a turn-around for our previously Intel-dominated PC charts.

All the systems reviewed here feature ATI graphics cards, but the Mesh Matrix II 550BE PCA's HD 4870 outclasses the competition and takes gaming to a new level of performance.

Other components are standard fare, with the Mesh Matrix II 550BE PCA's smart black case concealing 4GB of DDR2 memory and a 500GB hard drive. The 19in display is perfectly acceptable but lacks a digital input. Usefully, Mesh preinstalls the CyberLink DVD suite.

One slight niggle, however, is the Mesh Matrix II 550BE PCA's one-year warranty, which is disappointing in comparison with the two-year guarantees offered elsewhere.

Verdict

The Mesh Matrix II 550BE PCA offers unbeatable value and class-leading performance. If you want a gaming PC for less than £500, nothing else here comes close.

Mesh Matrix II 5870XT wins PC Pro Recommended!

Mesh Computers with the Mesh Matrix II 5870XT has picked up a second award - this time from PC Pro giving it an A-List rating. Check out the full review below from PC Pro reviewer Mike Jennings.

It may be a mere six months since ATI launched the Radeon HD 4890 as its single-GPU flagbearer, but the HD 5870 wasted no time in usurping it last month. The new card deservedly won a place on the A List on its PC Pro debut, and Mesh is the first manufacturer to include it in its Matrix II 5870XT PC.

The HD 5870 certainly boasts impressive credentials: it’s ATI’s first desktop 40nm part, the world’s first DirectX 11 GPU and boasts 1,600 stream processors, 2.15 billion transistors and a core clock speed of 850MHz, alongside 1GB of 1,200MHz GDDR5 memory.

This tantalising specification resulted in excellent gaming performance. In our 1,920 x 1,200 very high quality Crysis test, for instance, the Mesh returned an impressive average framerate of 39fps. More demanding tests didn’t faze the card, either; in fact, only a mammoth 2,650 x 1,600 test at very high settings caused the HD 5870 problems – it only managed 24fps – but you'll only reach that resolution if you shell out a lot more on a huge 30in TFT. Nevertheless, it’s an excellent performance that’s only marginally bettered by recent PCs we've reviewed with dual GPUs.

Partnering this groundbreaking GPU is a 3.2GHz AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor, one of the most powerful quad-core parts in AMD’s range. It may not be as revolutionary as the graphics card, but the Mesh still delivered an excellent result of 2.03 in our suite of application benchmarks.

This score may not see the Mesh challenging its A-Listed competitors for raw power – the Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire used an overclocked Intel Core i5 chip to score 2.45 in our benchmarks – but the Matrix II is still one of the fastest AMD-based systems we’ve seen and offers more than enough speed to cope with demanding applications.

Mesh has packed 4GB of RAM, a 1TB hard disk and a Blu-ray drive into the Matrix II 5870XT, to ensure there’s plenty of space for large media collections, as well as the capacity to play high-definition movies.

It's all crammed into the popular NZXT Hush case. It may not look as sleek or feel as sturdy as other favourites such as the Antec Nine Hundred Two, but the Hush’s main strength is noise prevention: layers of sound-absorbing foam and dozens of rubber washers keep vibrations and hums to a minimum.

The result is a system that, while far from silent, is relatively quiet for such a powerful beast. The Akasa Nero CPU heatsink and that graphics card cooler mean there’s a constant whirr from the side of the chassis but, thankfully, it’s kept to a manageable level and is unlikely to prove distracting.

The chassis is neat and tidy elsewhere, with bundles of cables lashed together and out of sight, although the bulky components mean working inside is tricky. The two spare DIMM sockets are very close to the Akasa Nero, for instance, and adding a new hard disk into one of the four empty, tool-free bays will likely require removal of the graphics card.

Outside the case, Mesh has included decent peripherals. The Iiyama ProLite E2407HDS offers a full-HD resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, with solid image quality, especially when handling lighter tones –although we did notice backlight bleed at both the top and bottom of the screen. The choice of Logitech Deluxe 660 wireless keyboard and mouse is good, although perhaps lacking the precision demanded by serious gamers.

With all the power inside, we assumed the Mesh would tip the scales above £1,000 but it comes in at a reasonable £912 exc VAT. This looks good value when stacked up against its A List competition. The £869 Mesh Elite Ice 5 Pro can't match the Mesh for gaming prowess, while the two graphics cards of the £1,199 Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire proved barely faster for that wedge of extra cash.

It’s this combination of price and performance that makes the Mesh so tempting. It may fall slightly behind some rivals in our 2D tests, but it's still a very fast machine, and its gaming performance is top class without resorting to a giant graphics card that sounds like a Hoover. If you’re searching for a cutting-edge gaming rig that doesn’t break the bank, the Mesh Matrix II 5870XT is flavour of the month.

MESH Matrix II 5870XT wins PC Advisor Recommended award

Review time again, and this time its the MESH Matrix II 5870XT which has picked up a PC Advisor Recommended award. Featuring a ATI Radeon 5870 HD graphics card, and powered by AMD's flagship CPU, PC Advisor has lauded it as a supremely fast gaming PC costing less than £1,000.

No other sub-£1000 PC they've seen had come anywhere close to the MESH Matrix II 5870XT's level of gaming performance, with the Radeon 5870 HD propelling it to over 40fps on the HQ Crysis test - that's at least 10fps faster than the best of the rest.

Check out the full PC Advisor review by Paul Monckton below:

Fitted with the latest ATI Radeon 5870 HD graphics card and powered by AMD's flagship CPU, the MESH Matrix II 5870XT is a supremely fast gaming PC costing less than £1,000.

With the exception of nVidia's hugely expensive GeForce GTX 295, this new single-GPU graphics card stomps all over anything else on the market today, including AMD's former champ, the twin-processor Radeon HD 4870 X2.

No other sub-£1,000 system we've seen so far can come anywhere close to the MESH Matrix II 5870XT's level of gaming performance. The Radeon 5870 HD propels it to speeds of 40fps in our high-quality Crysis test - at least 10fps faster than the best of the rest can muster.

Furthermore, this is currently the only graphics card capable of forthcoming titles such as DiRT2 from Codemasters. These will push the 5870 still further ahead of the competition in both performance and image quality. You'll also be able to use Microsoft's DirectCompute 11 API, allowing the graphics card to take on other duties more effectively, such as seamlessly converting video for use on your portable media player. Older cards are limited to DirectCompute 10.0 or 10.1.

See also: HIS Radeon HD 5870 1GB review

A total of four monitor outputs include a pair of DVI ports as well as both HDMI and DisplayPort connectors, all of which (thanks to AMD's ‘Eyefinity' feature) can be used simultaneously to enable ultra-high resolution multi-screen gaming. However, our review MESH Matrix II 5870XT PC is supplied with a single 22in Iiyama full-HD monitor (for £50 more you can get the 24in monitor pictured).

Housed in a black brushed-aluminium NZXT Hush system case, the MESH Matrix II 5870XT PC remains quiet. This is thanks to a sound-insulated interior which dampens the soft whirr of the specially selected cooling fans inside.

The Asus M4A79XA EVO mainboard comes with two x16 PCI-Express slots supporting an upgrade to dual graphics cards using CrossFireX. Two sticks of DDR3 RAM provide a total of 4GB - with a pair of empty slots of upgrades.

Our WorldBench result of 126 points reveals general application performance to sit at the lower end of what we'd expect from a similarly priced PC based on Intel's Core i7 920, so while the MESH Matrix II 5870XT offers exceptional value for gamers, those hungry for the ultimate overall performance may wish to spend a little more for a faster processor.

Verdict

The MESH Matrix II 5870XT is powerful, well-constructed and built with quality components, but the Radeon 5870 HD takes it to a whole new level of gaming performance at an affordable price.