MESH Matrix II 920 (Phenom II) PC System
Introduction
Published: 8th January 2009 | Source: MESH | Price: £749 |
Introduction
With an internet full of 'companies' that promise the world yet deliver nothing, to the local shops that lead you to believe that the 3 year old components collecting dust on their shelves are still "the latest thing", picking the right system integrator to build your brand new PC system can be a daunting task. The current state of the world economy certainly doesn't help things either, with integrators and retailers such as ones covered here recently going bust and leaving a lot of customers out in the cold when it comes to future support on their recently purchased systems.
However, one company that seems to have weathered such storms well over the past two decades is MESH Computers. Founded in 1987 and based in London, England; MESH have provided over half a million systems to both the home, education and government markets. Here's what Tony Riccardi, Sales & Marketing Director for MESH had to say in a recent conversation about the company:
With so many years experience under their belts, MESH have naturally become very close partners with both AMD and Intel. So much so that a large majority of all AMD CPU launches from the early K6 chips (K6, K6-2, K6-3) to the Athlon XP and more recently Athlon 64's have been performed hand-in-hand with MESH. Therefore it's certainly no surprise that our first encounter with AMD's eagerly awaited Phenom II chip comes in the form of a neatly wrapped MESH system...
And here she is. The first of MESH's 2009 system revamps, imaginatively named the "Matrix II". However unlike the film, buyers are not given the option of the Blue or Red pill, instead red and green are the orders of the day in the form of the AMD Phenom II X4 920 Quad Core AM2+ processor and a HIS (ATI) 4850 IceQ graphics card.
Here's the full system specs (pre-launch) as provided by MESH:
With an expected retail price of £749 including VAT the Matrix II initially looks like quite an attractive proposal. Ready to run straight out of the box, you get a mid-range Creative Labs 5.1 surround sound package, Logitech cordless mouse & keyboard, Iiyama 22" widescreen TFT and a pretty sexy base unit loaded with a 64-Bit Vista operating system along with a few other mediocre software packages.
Now that we've got the formalities out of the way, let's move over to the next page and take a look at the system in more detail...
With an internet full of 'companies' that promise the world yet deliver nothing, to the local shops that lead you to believe that the 3 year old components collecting dust on their shelves are still "the latest thing", picking the right system integrator to build your brand new PC system can be a daunting task. The current state of the world economy certainly doesn't help things either, with integrators and retailers such as ones covered here recently going bust and leaving a lot of customers out in the cold when it comes to future support on their recently purchased systems.However, one company that seems to have weathered such storms well over the past two decades is MESH Computers. Founded in 1987 and based in London, England; MESH have provided over half a million systems to both the home, education and government markets. Here's what Tony Riccardi, Sales & Marketing Director for MESH had to say in a recent conversation about the company:
"MESH is all about delivering award winning product, with great service, at a competitive price.
If you're not sure how good MESH is at doing this, you'd need to go through the history of the UK PC market
and look at the history of companies like Dan, Elonex, Opus, Time, Carrera, MJN, Tiny, Apricot and Evesham.
MESH has big plans for 2009, including a complete revamp of its existing designs - and the MESH Matrix II
is the first of these.
Among the new suppliers being used by MESH is HIS for advanced ATI graphics solutions. MESH has been testing
the in-game and in-PC performance of various solutions and will be moving multiple SKUs (Single Known Units)
across to HIS during January.
All MESH systems are 'turnkey', in that all you need to do is switch them on - backed by a strong warranty."
If you're not sure how good MESH is at doing this, you'd need to go through the history of the UK PC market
and look at the history of companies like Dan, Elonex, Opus, Time, Carrera, MJN, Tiny, Apricot and Evesham.
MESH has big plans for 2009, including a complete revamp of its existing designs - and the MESH Matrix II
is the first of these.
Among the new suppliers being used by MESH is HIS for advanced ATI graphics solutions. MESH has been testing
the in-game and in-PC performance of various solutions and will be moving multiple SKUs (Single Known Units)
across to HIS during January.
All MESH systems are 'turnkey', in that all you need to do is switch them on - backed by a strong warranty."
With so many years experience under their belts, MESH have naturally become very close partners with both AMD and Intel. So much so that a large majority of all AMD CPU launches from the early K6 chips (K6, K6-2, K6-3) to the Athlon XP and more recently Athlon 64's have been performed hand-in-hand with MESH. Therefore it's certainly no surprise that our first encounter with AMD's eagerly awaited Phenom II chip comes in the form of a neatly wrapped MESH system...
And here she is. The first of MESH's 2009 system revamps, imaginatively named the "Matrix II". However unlike the film, buyers are not given the option of the Blue or Red pill, instead red and green are the orders of the day in the form of the AMD Phenom II X4 920 Quad Core AM2+ processor and a HIS (ATI) 4850 IceQ graphics card.
Here's the full system specs (pre-launch) as provided by MESH:
• AMD Phenom II X4 920 Quad Core Processor AM2+
• Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit - English
• NZXT HUSH Silent Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower - Silver + 550W PSU
• ASUS M3A , AMD Socket AM2+ Phenom ATX Mainboard
• 4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM - (2x 2GB)
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
• Samsung 22x Dual Layer DVD Writer Super Format +R/-R/RW/RAM
• 512MB ATi 4850 Graphics accelerator - DVI, DirectX 10.1 PCI Express 2
• 22" Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS-1 LCD Widescreen Digital & Multi Media TFT Display
• 7.1 High Definition onboard sound card - for 8 Channel Cinema sound
• Creative Labs T6100 - 5.1 Speakers with Subwoofer
• Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse
• Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + Limited Microsoft Office Trial
• Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
• 52-in-1 Multi-format Memory Card Reader (ATX)
• 1 Year Hardware Warranty - Return to Base Parts and Labour (UK Mainland only)
• Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit - English
• NZXT HUSH Silent Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower - Silver + 550W PSU
• ASUS M3A , AMD Socket AM2+ Phenom ATX Mainboard
• 4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM - (2x 2GB)
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
• Samsung 22x Dual Layer DVD Writer Super Format +R/-R/RW/RAM
• 512MB ATi 4850 Graphics accelerator - DVI, DirectX 10.1 PCI Express 2
• 22" Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS-1 LCD Widescreen Digital & Multi Media TFT Display
• 7.1 High Definition onboard sound card - for 8 Channel Cinema sound
• Creative Labs T6100 - 5.1 Speakers with Subwoofer
• Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse
• Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + Limited Microsoft Office Trial
• Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
• 52-in-1 Multi-format Memory Card Reader (ATX)
• 1 Year Hardware Warranty - Return to Base Parts and Labour (UK Mainland only)
With an expected retail price of £749 including VAT the Matrix II initially looks like quite an attractive proposal. Ready to run straight out of the box, you get a mid-range Creative Labs 5.1 surround sound package, Logitech cordless mouse & keyboard, Iiyama 22" widescreen TFT and a pretty sexy base unit loaded with a 64-Bit Vista operating system along with a few other mediocre software packages.
Now that we've got the formalities out of the way, let's move over to the next page and take a look at the system in more detail...
Most Recent Comments
Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='Rastalovich'
(FC2 graph didn't push the YoYo stat through for me, it stayed on zero)
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QuoteFantastic system at a great price imo.
Also makes me happy in my pants that it looks like AMD are releasing a great new CPU with some potential
Quote
Also makes me happy in my pants that it looks like AMD are releasing a great new CPU with some potential
QuoteQuote:
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Originally Posted by name='Kempez'
Fantastic system at a great price imo.
Also makes me happy in my pants that it looks like AMD are releasing a great new CPU with some potential |
I think for the first time in a while you can go green without feeling like people on the blue team are having more fun than you are.Quote
mesh do have pretty good prices overall, but i found their customer service useless >.>Quote
CSS Valid
Have to be honest, I`m impressed by the cost and gear presented in this package.
I'm not surprized by the AMD offering mind u, as over the last week or so I`ve seen phenom based pre-build pcs popping up in a number of stores - and been shocked at what on the surface looks like real value, I`ve seen £399 for something basic`ish, but hey it still had everything with it. Decent monitor size, pleasant on the eye - and can actually do gaming/work to a more than acceptable level, considering we're talking prebuild status.
Sure, I`d seriously consider point some1 in this direction. Doubly sure I`d probably make an image of the harddrive (or switch it out) and do a fresh, non bumfph install to improve things that little %, but u have the backing of the company should anything go wrong with it.
If MESH are good c/s wize, I`d not hesitate suggesting.Quote