Desktop PCs

If you are in search for a pre-built PC, then the first and in most of the cases, the only manufacture’s name that would have sprung in your mind is without any doubts, Dell. But, Mesh is yet another manufacturer who for sure deserves some consideration as they have been doing so well in the past few years. You have a spectrum of choice in the market when you are looking for a Gaming PC, while some are cheap, most of them out there are definite to break your savings. It is a real challenge for the manufacturers to create a PC that is a blend of both affordability and performance. Mesh has made such an attempt.

Finally comes the AMD dual core:

The dual core processors of AMD had taken the performances of PCs to a new height, but the company remained adamant by having its flagship FX series only to single core roots. The rife speculations on when AMD would announce its dual core version of its famous Athlon 64 X processor is finally over with the Athlon 64 FX 60. With the help of this fastest gaming CPU available along with some twin graphics cards, Mesh has surprised everybody in the market by almost achieving its goal of great performance at reasonable pricing. In the following review, let us analyse if the PC has cut ant corners or manages to live up to the full potential without any discrepancy.

Design:

Muted design:
The Mesh X-treme FX60 has an attractive silver and black chassis. You will find that the design of the PC is not that striking as a typical AlienWare PC. Though the design will not achieve a turn back at the PC, with the absence of all the attention seeking colours and flashing lights, it will not adulterate your interior decor of your home. The designers of Mesh have come up with some very clever colour coding. The silver highlighting that is in the facia of the casing matches with the widescreen monitor and the peripherals, the Logitech cordless keyboard and rechargeable cordless optical mouse.

20-inch Viewsonic Monitor:
With the Philips’ 200W6CS 20” Viewsonic widescreen monitor Mesh has made sure that you can get the most out of the Mesh X-treme FX60 AMD Desktop Computer. Style wise the Viewsonic takes some getting used to with a somewhat dated looked chassis with a row of silver buttons at the base. The quality of the pictures is very high, with the native resolution being 1650 x 1050 pixels and with that, you will be able to work with a significant number of applications simultaneously, hence take full advantage of widescreen movie playback. The colours are accurate and even quoted a response time of 16ms.

Shortcomings of the monitor:
There is little to be worried about with viewing angles as images take on a slight red caste towards the extreme edges, but not enough to notice during day-to-day use. Another gripe with the monitor is that, as in the case of the base unit, this one too lacks a memory card reader. However, since mesh offers you with various options for configuration, you can either upgrade it or just remove it from the package. Consider a TFT with a lower response time in case gaming is your first priority as there is some visible lag.

The peripherals:
Logitech has offered wireless mouse and keyboard that will help you to keep the desktop uncluttered. But still, we would not trust a wireless mouse for gaming as this one especially is not Logitech’s faster response time laser mice.

Twin Optical drive with Floppy drive:
Mesh has employed twin optical drive in the PC with a long lost floppy disc drive on top of these. It is disappointing that one is a DVD-ROM drive, especially at this price point and another issue that we would like to point out is that, both the drives share an IDE port on the motherboard which resulting in holding up of operations while using both the drives at once. But this is a very small compromise made by a machine that devoured every task that is placed before it. The addition of a floppy drive is quite a surprise and a contrary with the ultra modern PCs of this decade. The device has everything that you would expect it to have like, a spherical power switch, an array of status lights and also a pair of front facing USB ports. There is also the reset button that can be only accessed with something like a pen tip, yes that is frustrating. That is all we have in front.

The speaker system:
Though the desktop PC does not take much of space, you will have to spare some space to put in the supplementary creative T7900 speaker system as its sub-woofer system is quite heavy. You will also find seven other interesting speakers that escort the device for which you have to stick on the cables to the wall to keep away from your lounge flooded with wires, giving it an untidy look.

Adequate IO ports:
The collection of input and output ports is quite impressive. Along with the pair of USB ports at the front of the base unit, there are four more of them at the rear. The other connectivity options include a six pin FireWire port and a pair of Ethernet ports. They function in the same fashion as the hardware router that enables you to share a wired internet connection with a second PC and the one equipped with Nvidia’s Active Armour keeps you out of reach of the viruses, worms, hackers and the other possible internet threats.

Features:

In the official website of Mesh, you will find a number of configurations in which this gaming PC is available.

The AMD Athlon FX-60 dual core processor:
As we had mentioned in the introduction, the most important and selling point feature of the Mesh X-treme FX60 is its AMD Athlon FX-60 dual core processor. This processor is the one that is a reference model and topping the charts of the gaming processors. It is a chip that primarily aims at the gamers and ultra power users and so its benchmark store of 1.34 comes in as no surprise. The Athlon FX60 has a performance that will humiliate any other desktop PC while performing normal desktop programs. You must not get deceived by its modest clock speed of 2.6Ghz, as you will not be able to find a better overall performer for consumer PCs. Both offer 1MB of Level 2 cache for each core, and aside from the clock speeds the difference is that AMD’s FX range is multiplier unlocked. This enables enthusiasts to over-clock without having to adjust memory or Hyper-Transport speeds. This is a good thing in the case of this system as Mesh has only fitted standard PC3200, which is not really suitable for overclocking.

Motherboard:
Yet another monster that has joined hands with this processor is the established Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard. Though this motherboard is not specifically designed for multimedia and gaming capabilities, it is still a very impressive player in its own area and is the best when it comes to booting. The only issue that we have with the system is that, Mesh has employed an active heat sink in order to cool its chipset which in turn will add to the overall noise of the PC.

Dual graphics cards:
Joining this “all stars” combo is a pair of Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT graphics cards. These cards are flawless when they work in single, and give a much superior performance when in tandem but they prove to be quite noisy. With the solo performance, they do not prove to be as good as the swift 7800 GTX or the latest 7900 GTX cards, but when put into operation in tandem they prove to be a very impressive solution.

Storage options:
The X-treme FX60 comes with a great deal of storage too. You will find a number of configurations that Mesh has put out for you. One of the most common storage configuration is, 300GB of Maxtor 6L30020 serving as main storage, with a 200GB Maxtor 6L200M0 acting as backup and RAM of 2GB. Though the arrangement is slightly unbalanced, 500GB of data storage is nonetheless a generous proposition.  The former has 16MB of cache and the latter has 8MB. Both spin at 7,200 rpm.

And the fastest option is a RAID 0 disk configuration that has two 250GB drives. In order to make hard copy back-ups, opt for the Sony DW-Q30A DVD rewriter which is again one of the fastest rewriter available in the current market. With the help of this rewriter you will be able to burn DVD+/-RW backups at up to 16x, and in addition to this, the unit has dual-layer support that allows you to use CDs that are as massive as 8.5GB. By adding the Sony DDU-1615 DVD-ROM drive, Mesh has made disc to disc copying possible.

Thrilling Audio:

The acoustic capabilities of the PC are in par with the visual treats offered by the same. The Mesh X-treme FX60 is equipped with one of the finest sound cards available in the market, the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi that occupies a PCI slot in the motherboard, and the Creative T7900 7.1-channel speaker system. The latter might be an overkill for most, but with these two systems joining hands, they prove to be the ideal combo to enjoy the games in surround sound and so create your own high end audio. We are sure that this will be great news for the promising musicians.

Performance:

Mesh X-treme FX60 Desktop Computer has a startling performance which does not come as a surprise since the PC is equipped with the AMD Athlon FX-60 CPU. The PC attains a score of 6302 in the PCMark 2005, which is only a wee bit less than the score of the Alienware Aurora 7500. The gaming performance of the PC is also astonishing.

If you are working with the multimedia files, the FX60 will simply revolutionise the way you work, it would not even care to blink. When PhotoShop CS2 is opened simultaneously with another MM application, we were not able to slow it down by any means, no matter the complexity of the effects that were applied to the image.

The Cool and Quiet function keeps power consumption low, so the processor does not heat up too much and require the fans to go into overdrive. This function works effectively in the case of the Mesh.

Software Bundle with X-treme FX 60:

The OS included in the system is, Windows XP Home Edition. X-treme FX60 is bundled with a very interesting and useful collection of software that includes Microsoft Works 8.5, Cyberlink PowerDVD 6, Power2Go 4, PowerProducer 3, PowerDirector 3, PowerBackup 1.1, PowerCinema 4 and MediaShow 3. With the Microsoft Works you can start word processing and spreadsheet tasks straight away and with all the other software, you can produce some professional editing stuff. The bad news is for the gamers as the PC does not come with any games, so install the collection that you have to get the most out of the hardware.

Premium guarantee:

Mesh reassures you with an excellent three year on-site guarantee for X-treme FX60 that includes free parts and labour and 24 x 7 online support. This is very catchy as most of the manufacturers will charge you heaps for this level of support. You will also be provided with a very handy lifetime hardware support telephone line that will help you out in case you get struck down somewhere.

Verdict:

The Mesh X-treme FX60 is a well put together system with plenty of room to upgrade and a very satisfying guarantee. With such a specification, the FX60 will never fail to impress you, but what tops it off, is the price of the PC.  If you are looking for the latest and the greatest in the market, the FX60 is an ideal choice, you must have deep pockets though, but the system is worth every penny that is paid for. For options, you might also want to consider the Evesham Axis Blaze 1800 XL which is specifically for Games and applications.

Check other Gaming Desktop PCs, Zoostorm Desktop PCs in our website.

Mesh X-treme FX60 Desktop PC – Technical Specification Details

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