ARBICO extras and warranty
Storage-wise, there's a 500GB drive that's divided into two partitions. We were worried that placing it at the very bottom could have compromised cooling to some extent, however drive software reported low-ish temperature throughout testing.Cooling is balanced with a 120mm intake and exhaust fan and, under load, the system is reasonably quiet - the CPU fan spinning the fastest, at 1,700rpm. Temperatures, too, are reasonable, reporting 66°C under four-core Prime95 load.
Both systems use onboard sound that's fed off the high-definition audio on the motherboards, and both can pass the audio through the graphics card - the ARBICO has an S/PDIF cable connected to the GPU - and out to an external receiver.
Like the MESH, the system's loaded with Vista Premium 64-bit SP1, and ARBICO adds PowerDVD, Nero, and Open Office.
The return-to-base warranty last two years. Cover in the first year is for parts and labour, and only labour being provided in the second year. Turnaround time is quoted as between 5-7 working days from receipt. The purchaser needs to pay courier charges in both directions, however. The £40.25 delivery cost, which seems expensive on first glance, includes one month's to-and-fro charges should the system need returning.
ARBICO provides online and paper documentation which details basic troubleshooting, and the £699 asking price seems reasonable when the individual components are totted up