Mesh Matrix II 620 HD review

Mesh’s Matrix II 620HD put in a strong performance in our application tests, and is a fine choice unless you want to play games – just flip to the graphs on page 91 and you’ll see what we mean. If you like the look of the Matrix II but do want to play games, you’ll need to replace the Radeon 4350 graphics card with something more powerful. There’s enough room in the compact (and quiet) mini-tower case for a full-sized graphics card – even one that takes up two slots – but you may need a molex to PCI-E adaptor, as the 300W power supply has no PCI-E power connectors. This is the first £500 PC we’ve seen from Mesh with an AMD Athlon II processor, rather than a Phenom. This processor is essentially the same as a Phenom II, but simply has fewer cores and less cache memory. It’s still powerful enough for most tasks, though. There’s another reason why the 620 HD misses out an award: there’s not much room for upgrades. Both memory slots on the Asus M2N68-AM SE2 motherboard are used to bring the board up to its maximum 4GB of RAM, both SATA ports are in use and there’s just one PCI and one PCI-E x1 slot. It may not have the raw power of some similarly priced PCs, but the Matrix II 620 HD is still a good choice. The excellent 22in Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS monitor has a resolution of 1,920×1,080. This provides outstanding image quality, with bright, even backlighting and wide viewing angles. The 1TB hard disk is also fantastic in a PC at this price, providing all the storage you’re likely to need for some time. It also comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit preinstalled, so you won’t have the hassle of applying for an upgrade and installing it yourself. Rounding off the system is a comfortable Logitech keyboard and mouse set.

Thanks to the big hard disk and large, high-resolution monitor, this is one of the most usable PCs you can buy for £500. The only weak point is that its graphics card lacks the power required for gaming. However, factoring in expandability, CCL’s CCL-CS1009 just edges out Mesh to be our budget PC of choice.