System Setup and Notes
| System name | MESH Elite E6600 Express HX | HEXUS Core 2 Duo 7950 GT | MESH Elite Fire X1950 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz, dual-core) | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz, dual core) | |
| Motherboard | ASUS P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe - nForce4 SLI x16 | Intel D975XBX2 - Intel i975X | ASUS P5W DH Deluxe - Intel i975X |
| Memory | 2GiB (2 x 1024) Nanya PC4300 DDR2 | 2GiB (2 x 1024) 2GiB Corsair PC8500 EPP | 2GiB (2 x 1024) OCZ PC2-7200 |
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-12-2T @ 533MHz | 4-4-4-12-2T @ 800MHz | 4-4-4-15 2T @ 890MHz |
| Graphics card(s) | Leadtek GeForce 7950GT 256MB | Foxconn GeForce 7950 GT 512MB | 2 x ATI Radeon X1950 XTX in CrossFire |
| Disk drive(s) | 320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 | 300GB Maxtor 6V300F0 | 600GB (2 x 300GB) Maxtor 6V300F0 |
| Chassis | MESH new-style aluminium | Cooler Master Wave Master | MESH plastic/metal |
| PSU | HEC-550TD-PTE | OCZ PowerStream 520W | HEC-550TD-PTE |
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 91.47 | ATI CATALYST 6.8 | |
| Chipset driver | ForceWare 6.82 | Intel Inf 8.0.1.1002 | Intel Inf 8.1.1.1001 |
| Operating System | Windows XP MCE 2005 | Windows XP Pro SP2 | Windows XP Home SP2 | Monitor | Sony SDM-HS95PR (1280x1024) | Sony SDM-HS95PR (for build costs) (1280x1024) | ViewSonic VP2030B (1600x1200) |
| Price | £1099.99 | £1345 | £1996 |
| Benchmarks |
ScienceMark 2.0 HEXUS Pifast Benchmark HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701.5MB WAV HEXUS.in-house DivX encode using DivX 6.4 and VirtualDub on 416MB DV file CINEBENCH 2003 v9.5 multi-CPU render HDTach 3.0.1.0 Far Cry v1.33 - HEXUS custom benchmark Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.05 - HEXUS custom benchmark Quake 4 v1.04 HEXUS Custom Benchmark |
|---|
Notes
We're comparing the performance of the MESH Elite E6600 Express against a similar SKU built by HEXUS. We've used, arguably, a nicer chassis, better system memory, running at DDR2-800MHz, and a graphics card with double the framebuffer. However, our component cost, excluding the 3-year onsite warranty and building, comes to around £1,345, suggesting that MESH offers good value for money, again. Compiling a near-identical spec. reduces this price to £1,288.We've also added in MESH's X1950 Fire PC, which we reviewed here, to show you the kind of speed increase, if any, spending almost twice as much gets you.
As always, we ran each benchmark a trio of times and then calculated the arithmetic mean. If any of the three results looked erroneous, we threw all three away until we could collect three within a margin of statistical error. We report any major attempts needed to get three reliable results, of course. Apart from that, things are as noted on the graphs and in the graph commentary. Want to know more? Head for the HEXUS.community.
