Mesh Super Computer £499.00 Inc VAT + Del (£40)

grex9101

you could build this system for £350 max

kmkmkm

grex9101 wrote:

you could build this system for £350 max

AMD Athlon™ 64 3000+ Processor
with HyperTransport™ Technology
Genuine Windows® XP Home
ASUS Nforce 410 PCI- X Mainboard
512MB DDR400 Memory
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
128MB Nvidia GeForce 6100 Graphics
19" TFT Flat Panel Display
Sony 16x Dual Layer DVD Writer
5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio
Sound Blaster SB260 Speakers
Media Card Reader 15 in 1
Logitech Desktop KB & Optical Mouse
Classic Warranty - 3 Years Parts & Lab


For £350, including a 3 year warranty??

Sorry mate, you're talking mince. The monitor alone is £150+.

You can upgrade to a 19" ViewSonic VX912 TFT Flat Panel Monitor - DVI (8ms) for £60.

Mesh are class, quality stuff.

mrm3

Mesh are one of the worst companies in the world though. If your system works then you are OK with cheap build. Any problems and it becomes a nightmare.

pin

mike230652 wrote:

pin

Please tell us what FACTUAL information you base your observation on...

..........." I think the parts Dell use won't be as good as the parts used by Mesh."

Do you know this to be true..if so how?? .......I'd like to share your insight and knowledge please.

mike

I must put my hand up and say I've not no proof.

jakemuk

SHAGGY84 wrote:

Whats up with only 1 hard drive and why would you want to run a raid array?

This is a low range system so the graphics card is more than ample for the graphics this machine is aimed at.

And why would you want more ram unless your running virtually all your applications at once and even then if you were to double the ram to 1024 you would not see any difference to the naked eye whatsoever.

i wont run a rig without a raid array on it !. for backup and preformance, its probs sata 1 and not sata II drive anyway

ram i would say around 2 gig just to be on safe side when hammering it,

rattla

jakemuk wrote:

i wont run a rig without a raid array on it !. for backup and preformance, its probs sata 1 and not sata II drive anyway

ram i would say around 2 gig just to be on safe side when hammering it,

...What world do you live in?? :rolleyes:

No-one needs a Raid array for home use. And if you are going to do be helping create animation for the next Disney Film (only reason I think that you would need 2Gig RAM ) you should get a bit higher spec machine.

I think the OP was pointing out a great decent performing machine at a good price. For the record on MESH v DELL, Mesh have consistantly created machines with a high level of performance for the spec (as reviewed by many Mags over the years). Dells have been notorious for being under-performing for the spec of the machine.

Duffbeer

I looked at this Mesh machine a couple of weeks ago before opting for one of the Dell special deals at the same price (inc delivery).

The Mesh is a well specified home (non-gamer) machine - it will do everything an ordinary home user wants (you can play games - the serious gamer will be spending a minimum of £1000 on a machine and the graphics card may cost as much as this entire Mesh system). It has a 19" TFT - at thiat size I recommend spending the extra to get the DVI version - the normal screen is analog and the dvi is driven digitally, so the detail should be clearer. You need to buy a DVI cable too. I consider a 19" TFT is very large (a 15"TFT is about the same viewable area as the old 17"CRT monitors).

The folks who have posted about RAID and SATA are in another league from the £499 machines - at this price point you don't get Raid setups (RAID is a way of using the hard disks to guard against disk failure by keeping a copy of the data on another drive or part of a drive), it can also help performance but the downside is that you need more than one hard disk. It is often used where reliability is key - for instance in a server which is connected to many deskop PCs.

At £499 inc VAT it is my opinion that you cannot build this machine from commercially available parts - if you're in the computer business and can buy in bulk that might be different.

We have both a £600 Mesh (3 years old) and a £600 Dell (1 year old) machine at home. The Mesh TFT has two dead pixels - a tiny green dot and a tiny red dot are visible and no manufacturer will replace a TFT with only one or two dead pixels. The Mesh machine has its fan permanently on so is noisy. The sound card on the Mesh needed a support call to Mesh to set up correctly. It came with a good set of speakers/mouse/keyboard/software and the internals have not given any problems.

The Dell has not put a foot wrong. All I can criticise it for is that the keyboard they send is poor - I bought a wireless set instead. It is quiet which I appreciate.

I did consider this Mesh before going for a new Dell 9150:
The Graphics card is built-in on the Mesh and separate on the Dell (separate card = better performance in general).
The Dell had no speakers, the Mesh did.
The Mesh had a 19" screen, the Dell a 17".

Both the machines I looked at had 512 memory - at work we use 256 - my existing Dell has 1024 and the existing Mesh 512.

256 is usable but slow when swapping applications. 1024 does not feel super-fast.

More memory is only going to help if memory is the bottleneck. So if you like to run many applications together, or edit really big photos, memory is more important. If you run low on memory, Windows uses the hard disk to offload information to (called the swap file) and therefore a fast hard disk is in my book more important than having more than 512Mb of memory. Serial ATA (SATA) is the new disk standard - both Dell and Mesh use it, though I think you can still buy some of the cheaper Dells with non SATA.

I have had a look at the Mesh site and this spec is still there (as Deal of the Week Matrix 3300+ NY).
Mesh

The Dell offers change each week and a good site to check for the better deals is
Wizmark

Dell themselves are at http://www.dell.co.uk
though the better deals are not usually the ones they have on the front pages.

These questions may help you
Screen size/quality:
How important is a clear/sharp screen?
How many windows do I have open at once on a screen?

A smaller screen will appear sharper - bigger ones show up fuzziness more. DVI is more important for bigger screens.


Memory:
Do I want to do A4 photo editing / video editing?
How many applications do I need to run at once?
Will I get frustrated if the response is not instant?

The more memory the better, but there is a point where you won't see any difference regardless of how much more you add. Do not get less than 512Mb.

Disk:
Will I save lots of images / movies / songs?

Faster and bigger are better - 80GB with a DVD burner is OK, I prefer 160GB.


Then the sexy bits (OK not very sexy)
Speakers - do I have space in my room for two behind me and two/three in front (5:1 surround) plus the wiring?
Keyboard/mouse - do I want wires or wireless (cheap to buy later). Personally I only want optical mice now - no sticky ball underneath.
Graphics card - do I have games which need good graphics?

Software: For a great (free) office suite visit Openoffice
it is compatible with Microsoft and offers word processor/spreadheet etc etc.

Warranty: if it does not break in the first year, will it be less hassle in 3 years to just get a new machine?

Hope all this helps someone
Duffbeer

kmkmkm

jakemuk wrote:

i wont run a rig without a raid array on it !. for backup and preformance, its probs sata 1 and not sata II drive anyway

ram i would say around 2 gig just to be on safe side when hammering it,

I work in IT and this is the kind of nonsense you hear all the time.

2 gig? Raid array? This is a PC for a normal person, not one of the weirdos I have to work with everyday.

welshblob

kmkmkm wrote:

I work in IT and this is the kind of nonsense you hear all the time.

2 gig? Raid array? This is a PC for a normal person, not one of the weirdos I have to work with everyday.

I also work in IT and it always amazes me when someone slates a spec like this. I got my 3Ghz P4, 512MB RAM, 80GB inc 17" TFT from Dell off one of their missprices and its great. I don't play games but have ripped DVD's and edited and encoded xvids and its been fine even with the onboard graphics.

I will be replacing the HDD with some 250GB mirrored ones I got from Aldi as I want more space to store xvids. They will be mirrored as I think drives are getting more unreliable and I don't want to have to rebuild all my data. But that is very far from the average user who doesn't normally need any sort of RAID.

I will also at some point be upgrading to 2GB of RAM but thats only because I want to run multiple guest machines under VMWare and therefore need more RAM. Once again not a normal home user thing to do.

The mesh looks a good price for the spec in my opinion and I don't have experience of their customer services.

"ram i would say around 2 gig just to be on safe side when hammering it" - ha ha ha ha

Cheers
Rob

tr3mor

mesh are a good company who make computers with top quality parts and with the RAM upgrade some of their offers are a good price.. They don't beat building it yourself but if you're gonna buy a ready built PC from a shop I'd recommend them. Not quick grabbit though as they ALWAYS have a PC like this or better on offer and instock.