Evesham Denver 5000 HD review

Take a look at the picture above and you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Evesham Denver 5000 HD looks just like any other PC.

We've been waiting so long for a PC with one of AMD's new AM2 superchips that we'd almost hoped it would come in a diamond-encrusted Gucci case and sweep us off our tired little feet with mind-blowing performance. Sadly, nothing of the sort happened - we were just getting over-excited.

Clad in Evesham's standard PC case, the 5000 HD does indeed look pretty boring, but under its workmanlike exterior lies one of AMD's brand-new Socket AM2 processors, the speed-demon Athlon 64 X2 5000+. With a whopping 2GB of memory in tow, we were pretty sure the 5000 HD was going to be something special.

What's all the fuss about?

If you were expecting AM2 to be a revolutionary advance in processor technology, prepare to be disappointed. The big change is that AM2 motherboards and processors now exclusively support faster DDR2-rated memory. DDR2 offers more memory bandwidth than its predecessor, which means more data can be moved between processor, memory and chipset in any given time - but this is about as exciting as it gets. The only thing physically different about the new processor is that it fits into a 940-pin socket rather than the 939-pin one that non-AM2 Athlon's use.

Other than adding support for DDR2 memory, AMD's AM2 range of processors is pretty much identical to the previous 939-pin line-up. Apart from a couple of range-topping new chips, one of which is inside the Denver HD, all AM2 processors have equivalents in the older socket 939 line-up. If you were expecting huge speed increases, you're out of luck - AMD expects its AM2 processors to be about 1% faster than its Socket 939 equivalents. The real benefit is future-proofing. AMD is going to stick with Socket AM2 for about two years, so you can be sure that you'll be able to upgrade to the very latest processors as they arrive - for the foreseeable future at least.

Speed demon

While AM2 itself isn't the revolution we were hoping for, the new Athlon 64 X2 5000+ inside the Evesham is still ludicrously fast. With two processor cores running at a heady 2.6GHz, each equipped with 512KB of cache memory, the 5000+ is almost as powerful as the top-of-the-range Athlon 64 FX60. But do all these mind-boggling numbers translate into outstanding performance? Yes, they certainly do. Our application benchmarks were completed faster than any PC we've seen, with an overall score of 162%. This is obscenely quick and the might of the Denver 5000 HD was particularly evident in the video-encoding portion of our tests, where it was nearly two and a half times faster than our benchmark PC. In fact, this PC is so powerful that there isn't a program around today that will even cause it to break into a sweat.

Never forget

The processor may be getting all the headlines, but the rest of the Denver's specification isn't to be sniffed at either. Evesham has wisely partnered this powerful processor with a generous 2GB of DDR2 RAM, so you can be sure that the Evesham will happily thrash through Windows applications of all shapes and sizes. Even upgrading to Vista, the next version of Windows, will be straightforward once it finally arrives on shop shelves. This PC is so well-featured that it will easily run the new operating system without any upgrades.

However, although performance is important, so is upgradeability, and the Denver 5000 HD has plenty of potential for future additions. The 320GB hard disk is plenty to get started with, but if you need more storage, the superb MSI motherboard has five spare SATA ports for adding extra hard disks. The motherboard is similarly well supplied with three PCI-Express slots and two PCI Express 1x ports for add-in cards like Dual Digital TV tuners, video-capture cards and fancy sound cards.