Final thoughts and rating
There's significant performance to be had once a user is committed in spending more than £500 on a PC base unit. The two review systems, from MESH and ARBICO, are both cases in point, shipping with decent performance on all fronts.Turning our attention to the £649 MESH, outfitted with a dual-core Phenom chip, 790GX motherboard, and Radeon HD 4890 1GB graphics, integration is good, starting off with the rather plush NZXT HUSH chassis. Given a similar budget we'd change a couple of items. We'd add in a quad-core AM3 chip and then make the necessary saving by dropping the graphics to a Radeon HD 4870 512MB card, which is some £60 cheaper than the HD 4890 specified here.
The rest of the specification is solid enough, so a change or two is all that's required for it to be considered as a serious option in the mid-range space.
ARBICO takes a different tack with its system, Priced a little higher than the MESH, at £699, and not shipping with input devices, the bulk of the money has been spent on the CPU and graphics. Intel's Q9550 chip is overclocked to 3.4GHz, helped by a decent Scythe Katana cooler, and gaming thrills are provided by an ASUS GeForce GTX 260.
Placing a great emphasis on two components is telling elsewhere. The chassis isn't as nice as the MESH's, integration and build a little unruly, and the motherboard precludes the option of adding a second video card at a later date. Performance is excellent at this price-point, especially the CPU's, making a good system for users not planning on upgrading the machine in, say, a year's time.
Building systems to a certain budget is always a case of balancing what goes where. MESH's Matrix II XGS550BE provides better futureproofing of the two at the cost of present performance. The ARBICO OC2695 XL is a faster out-of-the-box solution that's comparatively limited in upgrade potential.
Bottom line: two good systems that offer decent all-round performance. The ARBICO OC2695 XL is the faster machine, no doubt, but the MESH's Matrix II 550BE, based on the AM3 form-factor, will provide greater longevity, we feel. Neither is perfect, sure, but both have merits in different facets
HEXUS Rating
We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in, therefore the systems are evaluated with respect to our 'mid-range' criteria.
MESH Matrix II XGS550BE
ARBICO OC2695 XL
HEXUS Awards
MESH Matrix II XGS550BE
ARBICO OC2695 XL
HEXUS Where2Buy
The ARBICO OC2695 XL is available for £699, including VAT, by following this link.The MESH link will be provided as soon as it's made avaiable.
HEXUS Right2Reply
Farooq Ahmed, director of operations for ARBICO, submitted the following HEXUS Right2Reply:Having taken on board your comments, we have decided to upgrade the motherboard in this PC to the Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3 motherboard which has a slot for a second 16x PCI-Express graphics card and also provides firewire ports on the back of the PC for no extra cost. Also the cabling and wiring in our PCs is normally done more neatly but for the review PC the normal pre-shipment check was not carried out.
The PC will be supplied with a choice of the NVIDIA GTX 260 896MB or the ATI HD 4870 1GB graphics cards
