Features

The Midi-Tower case from Mesh has a solid feeling to it, being sturdy and somewhat heavier in comparison to others we have seen.
Although some see this as a disadvantage, we were very impressed with the engineering aspects of the case, and as far as looks go, it really comes down to individual taste, and it's your call. Getting inside the case couldn't be simpler just a matter of removing the screw and lifting the lever on the side panel. Once inside the cables are neatly tied back with sufficient tolerance to allow for future upgrades to be carried out without the need of having taken a degree course in origami to get them back to its original state. Again, Mesh is clearly listening to its customer by making improvements in areas that others simply ignore or don't have an eye for detail. A single 3.5" bay houses the 1.44Mb Floppy disk drive and directly beneath is the three 5.25" bays, of which one houses the TEAC CD-RW 54E and the second holds the Pioneer DVD-115B 16 x drive is a OEM tray loader, the retail version of the same drive comes in the shape of the 105SZ, this then leaves one spare 5.25" bay. There are three 3.5" bays internally, of which one houses the superb IBM DTLA 30.6GB 307030 ATA-100 disk drive which is easily the most value for money and performance based hard disk drive IBM has produced for system integrators in the last 3-4 years. This leaves two spare after the 3.5" 1.44Mb Floppy disk is utilised. The motherboard supplied with the system is the ASUS A7V manufactured by ASUSTEK COMPUTER INC based in Taiwan. The ASUS A7V is one of the finest motherboards currently available, having just completed a Head to Head labs review on motherboards in our labs previously, is based on the popular VIA KT133 chipset solution, supporting a 200MHz FSB and the Promise ATA/100 controller onboard, at the heart of the motherboard beats the awesome AMD Athlon 1GHz processor complete with a sophisticated heatsink/fan combination for cooling the processor, one of the finest processor's manufactured last year.
Supporting the processor is a generous 128MB PC133 SDRAM, the Video and Monitor combination is in the shape of the 3D Power GeForce2 MX 32MB SDRAM Video card with TV-OUT which feeds to the Iiyama S900MT1 19" monitor, as much as the monitor is of excellent choice, the keen price of the Mesh had to give way somewhere and the cost cutting takes the form of the video card, which although turned in a decent 2D/3D benchmark, we would have preferred to have had a GeForce2 GTS as opposed to the MX version. Communication needs will be sufficiently catered for with the internal Conexant 56k PCI Softmodem which supports V90 and will be adequate for all you Internet surfing needs, the sound combination is from Creative in the form of a Sound Blaster PCI 1024 delivered by the Creative PC Works 4 speaker surround system. The software bundled again is the Ms Works Suite 2000 which includes the popular Word 2000; Windows 98 SE operating system as opposed to the Windows Me, rounds off a well balanced system using intelligently selected range of components which complement each other.

Mesh has made a tremendous effort especially considering the rapid changes that occur in technology rendering user manuals out of date as soon as there are hot off the press. Once started, you are presented with the familiar Windows 98 screen, the resolution is set at 1024 x 768 - 85Hz this is ideal for the monitor supplied. In terms of upgrades there are 4 x PCI slots free, 2 x 3.5" internal bays, and 2 x DIMM slots for memory upgrades allowing a maximum 1.2GB in the current configuration. The ASUS A7V can currently handles all AMD processors up to and including the 1GHz, and supports the installation of 8 storage units on the EIDE platform. The only thing you need to bare in mind is the A7V motherboard support the AMD processor ends here as the new range of AMD processors (DDR) and chipsets have been launched and you are already purchasing yesterday's technology. Relax! all you need to make sure is a system of this class can last you for the next three to four years as this will then provide an excellent Return on Investment for you.

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