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With its MatriX6 Ti, Mesh is the first company to produce a desktop computer with a real six-core processor at a price that won’t make you feint in shock – all thanks to AMD’s brand-new Phenom II X6 1090T. As you can tell from the processor’s name, it’s an extension of the existing Phenom II architecture and uses the existing AM3 processor socket.
Despite the similarities, the Phenom II X6 requires a new motherboard chipset (Mesh has opted for the 890GX), as the 1090T has a trick up its sleeve: Turbo Core. It’s similar to Intel’s Turbo Boost, but not quite as advanced. When more power is required and not all six cores are used, the processor switches to use just three cores and ups the clock speed from 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz. In the case of the MatriX6 Ti, this feature is redundant as Mesh has overclocked the processor permanently to 3.8GHz.
Combined with 4GB of DDR3 1,600MHz memory (there are two spare slots for more if you need it) the PC scored 138 overall in our 2D benchmarks. This is pretty fast, but it isn’t the fastest we’ve ever seen and the individual benchmark scores tell the true story. In our Image editing test (which only utilises a single core), the MatriX6 Ti scored 125, which is only a couple of points quicker than a Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition would score – this is to be expected as the 965 runs only slightly slower at 3.4GHz.
However, in our video editing test, the MatriX6 Ti scored an impressive 156 compared to the 965’s score of 123. This highlights the benefits the extra cores have to play when you have an application that can use them. It’s worth pointing out, though, that Intel’s Core i7-860 (with its four physical cores doubled to eight by Hyper-Threading) runs at 2.66GHz but scored 164 in our video editing test and 151 overall and costs a similar amount to the Phenom X6 1090T.
Although AMD might still be lagging behind Intel in terms of performance, it’s the overall quality of a PC that counts and Mesh has done a good job here. The impressive ThermalTake case gives the immediate impression that this is a powerful computer. As well as the fast processor this perception is borne out by the graphics card: the incredibly-fast ATI Radeon HD 5850.
This stormed through our Call of Duty 4 test at 86.9fps and ran Crysis at 49.9fps. Turning the resolution up to the supplied display’s native resolution of 1,920×1080 barely affected performance and we managed 84.4fps in CoD4. In other words, you can play any game at the monitor’s native resolution with ease.
We’re pleased to say that the 23in Full HD Hanspree HF237 is a quality display, and it produced an evenly-lit, bright and vibrant picture. It’s an excellent choice. It has HDMI and VGA inputs, and a DVI-to-HDMI cable is included in the box.
Inside the case there’s space for a further two hard disks if you fill up the generous 1TB model, and five free 5.25in drive bays (you may want to use one to fit a memory card reader). The motherboard has plenty of expansion ports and it’s good to see USB3 ports, which you can use for lightning-fast external storage. Adding as many components as you like won’t be a problem as there’s a powerful 775W modular PSU.
As the processor’s overclocked, Mesh has used the ECO CoolIT A.L.C liquid cooler. This runs two heatpipes to a 120mm fan at the rear of the case. With the side off it’s quite loud, but with the side on there’s just the sound of the case fans to be heard; these are fairly loud but not too distracting when the case is placed on the floor.
The MatriX6 Ti is an incredibly fast and well-built computer that justifies its price with high-end components, but as our benchmarks show you’ll have to be running plenty of applications that make use all of six cores to see the benefits. If you don’t need this much power you can get a slightly slower Intel Core i5-750-based PC with a respectable ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics card for under £800.
