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Mesh Matrix II 620 HD review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £500
inc VAT

A solid PC with a massive hard disk and excellent monitor, but with rather limited upgrade potential and an underpowered graphics card.

Specifications

2.6GHz AMD Athlon II X4 620, 4.000000 RAM, 22in 1,920×1,080 display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Mesh Computers

Mesh’s Matrix II 620HD put in a strong performance in our application tests, and is a fine choice unless you want to play games – just flip to the graphs on page 91 and you’ll see what we mean.

If you like the look of the Matrix II but do want to play games, you’ll need to replace the Radeon 4350 graphics card with something more powerful. There’s enough room in the compact (and quiet) mini-tower case for a full-sized graphics card – even one that takes up two slots – but you may need a molex to PCI-E adaptor, as the 300W power supply has no PCI-E power connectors.

This is the first £500 PC we’ve seen from Mesh with an AMD Athlon II processor, rather than a Phenom. This processor is essentially the same as a Phenom II, but simply has fewer cores and less cache memory. It’s still powerful enough for most tasks, though.

There’s another reason why the 620 HD misses out an award: there’s not much room for upgrades. Both memory slots on the Asus M2N68-AM SE2 motherboard are used to bring the board up to its maximum 4GB of RAM, both SATA ports are in use and there’s just one PCI and one PCI-E x1 slot.

It may not have the raw power of some similarly priced PCs, but the Matrix II 620 HD is still a good choice. The excellent 22in Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS monitor has a resolution of 1,920×1,080. This provides outstanding image quality, with bright, even backlighting and wide viewing angles. The 1TB hard disk is also fantastic in a PC at this price, providing all the storage you’re likely to need for some time. It also comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit preinstalled, so you won’t have the hassle of applying for an upgrade and installing it yourself. Rounding off the system is a comfortable Logitech keyboard and mouse set.

Thanks to the big hard disk and large, high-resolution monitor, this is one of the most usable PCs you can buy for £500. The only weak point is that its graphics card lacks the power required for gaming. However, factoring in expandability, CCL’s CCL-CS1009 just edges out Mesh to be our budget PC of choice.

Basic Specifications

Rating ****
Processor AMD Athlon II X4 620
Processor external bus 200MHz (2GHz HyperTransport)
Processor multiplier x13
Processor clock speed 2.6GHz
Processor socket AM3
Level 1 cache 4x 128KB
Level 2 cache 4x 512KB
Memory 4.000000
Memory type PC2-6400
Maximum memory 4GB
Motherboard Asus M2N68-AM SE2
Motherboard chipset Nvidia GeForce 7025 + nForce 630a
Power consumption standby 6W
Power consumption idle 72W
Power consumption active 127W

Ports

USB2 ports (front/rear) 2/4
Firewire ports (front/rear) 0/0
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support none
Other ports VGA

Internal Expansion

Case mini PC
PCI-E x1 slots (free) 1 (1)
PCI-E x16 slots (free) 1 (0)
Free Serial ATA ports 0
Free memory slots 0
Free 3.5in drive bays 2

Hard Disk

Hard disk model(s) Samsung HD103UJ
Interface SATA 300
Total storage capacity 1,000GB
Spindle speed 7,200rpm

Graphics

Graphics card(s) 512MB ATI Radeon 4350
Graphics/video ports HDMI, DVI, VGA

Sound

Sound Realtec ALC662 High Definition Audio
Sound outputs 5.1 line out, stereo line out, mic in
Speakers none

Removable Drives

3.5in floppy drive no
Supported memory cards none
Optical drive model TSST SH-S223B
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 2ms
Screen inputs DVI, VGA

Other Hardware

Modem No
Keyboard Logitech Deluxe 250 Keyboard
Mouse Logitech M-UAE96

Software

Software included Microsoft Works 8.5, Cyberlink Video Editing Suite
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore option Windows disc

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £500
Details www.meshcomputers.com

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