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Eclipse’s Matrix i74n96GS has a flimsy case with a side panel that was difficult to refit because it flexed so much. The large vents may help cooling, but they did nothing to block the high-pitched fan whine that started every time we put the system under load. Upgraders won’t like the large gobs of glue that have been daubed over every connection in the case. These are to prevent mishaps in transit rather than to stop upgrades, but removing the glue from the delicate components required a considerable amount of force. The ASRock motherboard is unusual because it’s the only Intel board we’ve seen that can handle either DDR2 or DDR3 RAM. You can install a maximum of 16GB of DDR2 in four slots or 4GB of DDR3 in two slots. It has six SATA ports, three of which are free so you can add additional hard disks to the five empty 3?in bays. Like Mesh’s Nero 9850HD, the i74n96GS has both optical and co-axial S/PDIF outputs and a total of eight USB ports. An unusual feature is a WiFi/E header, which you can use to connect an ASRock 802.11n wireless module, which costs around £8. The 768MB Nvidia GeForce 9600 GSO graphics card is the most powerful in the £500 group. The accompanying monitor, a 19in widescreen Hannspree XM-S New York, has a resolution of 1,400×900. Colours are bright and vivid but the whole screen has a pink tint that’s particularly noticeable on pale images. The PC produced an excellent frame rate of 35.6fps in Call of Duty 4, which is faster than most of the £650 PCs here. It couldn’t quite manage a playable frame rate in Crysis at a resolution of 1,680×1,050, but you could improve this by lowering the quality settings. The keyboard and mouse are from Microsoft’s Basic range. They’re sturdy and comfortable to use, but lack frills such as short cut buttons.
Despite the basic warranty and a relatively small 320GB hard disk, this is a great budget gaming PC. It can’t quite match the upgrade potential of Mesh’s powerful Nero 9850HD but if you want to play games, this is ideal.
