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Mesh Nero 9850HD review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £499
inc VAT

Specifications

2.5GHz AMD Phenom X4 9850, 4.000000 RAM, 22in 1,920×1,080 display, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit

Mesh Computers

Mesh’s Nero 9850HD is one of the best £500 PCs here thanks to some great hardware and excellent upgrade potential.

It did astonishingly well in most of our benchmark tests and was particularly effective at video transcoding and in our multitasking Productivity test, where it outclassed most of the £650 and £800 PCs.

This is thanks to the great combination of AMD’s quad-core Phenom X4 9850 processor, an Asus M2N68-VM motherboard and 4GB of RAM. The M2N68-VM can take up to 8GB of RAM and supports AMD’s new Phenom II processors, which gives it plenty of scope for future upgrades. Its onboard graphics processor is HD ready, so you’ll be able to play high-definition movies if you install a Blu-ray drive. It has an HDMI output as well as the usual DVI and VGA ports. Noise from the tough mini tower case is an inoffensive low-frequency hum.

The Nero 9850HD has by far the best – and biggest – monitor in the £500 group: a 22in widescreen Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS. With a native resolution of 1,920×1,080, this monitor is ideal if you want to play games or watch or edit HD movies. Image quality is great with even backlighting, although colours are a little undersaturated and it isn’t the brightest 22in display we’ve seen.

The system’s only weak area is that it lacks a dedicated graphics card. This means you’ll need to spend extra to buy a PCI Express graphics card if you want to play 3D games. The integrated graphics caused the Nero to come bottom of the entire group in the PCMark Vantage Memories test.

If you added a Molex-to-PCI-E power adaptor and a decent graphics card, such as Sapphire’s £84 Radeon HD 4830 the Nero 9850HD could easily outperform many of the £650 and £800 PCs here. If you’ve no interest in gaming, the high-resolution monitor makes this a great multimedia and home entertainment PC. If you want to play games without upgrading, Eclipse’s Matrix i74n96GS is a better choice.

Basic Specifications

Rating *****
Processor AMD Phenom X4 9850
Processor external bus 200MHz (1GHz HyperTransport)
Processor multiplier x12.5
Processor clock speed 2.5GHz
Processor socket AM2+
Level 1 cache 4x 128KB
Level 2 cache 4x 512KB
Memory 4.000000
Memory type PC2-6400
Maximum memory 8GB
Motherboard Asus M2N68-VM
Motherboard chipset Nvidia GeForce 7050PV
Power consumption standby 5W
Power consumption idle 88W
Power consumption active 162W

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 3/4
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/1
Wired network ports 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none
Other ports none

Internal Expansion

Case mini PC
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 1 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 1 (1)
Free Serial ATA ports 1
Free memory slots 2
Free 3.5in drive bays 1

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) Samsung HD502IJ
Interface SATA/300
Total storage capacity 500GB
Spindle speed 7200rpm

Graphics

Graphics card(s) integrated Nvidia GeForce 7050PV
Graphics/video ports HDMI, DVI, VGA

Sound

Sound VT1708B High Definition Audio
Sound outputs 7.1 line out, optical S/PDIF out
Speakers none

Removable Drives

3.5in floppy drive no
Supported memory cards CF, SD, MMC, Memory Stick Pro, SmartMedia, xD
Optical drive model TSST SH-S223F
Optical drive type(s) DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Display

Viewable size 22 in
Screen model Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS
Native resolution 1,920×1,080
Response time 5ms
Screen inputs DVI, VGA

Other Hardware

Modem No
Keyboard Logitech Internet 350 Keyboard
Mouse Logitech M-UAE96

Software

Software included Microsoft Works 8.5, CyberLink Video Editing Suite
Operating system Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore option Windows disc

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £499
Details www.meshcomputers.com

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