Mesh Matrix 3800+

Mesh's Athlon 64 Range

Suddenly it's cool to have a black computer again. Or at least so Mesh thinks. This Windows XP system comes in an all-black tower. They also really embraced Asus components on this model.

The new SATA hard drive interfaces mean that bigger and faster hard drives can now be installed, but that limits you to newer operating systems like Windows XP. Of course there are still the older PATA interfaces on here (two of them still) meaning this computer could theoretically have up to 8 hard drives. Instead I have one hard drive, one DVD drive and one IDE to SD card adapter for experimenting with other operating systems on here.

CPU

AMD Athlon 64 3800+

Storage

Western Digital WD10EZEX 1TB SATA

DVD R/W

Video Card

Asus nVidia 6600GT

Motherboard

The Asus A8N-E motherboard in this computer is a reasonably respectable one. However it arrived dead and needed some reworking to resurrect it: some replacement capacitors, and the chipset fan was completely seized up and needed replacing - hence the strange GPU fan on this one instead of a proper one. The computer has a single 1GB DIMM in at the moment, which is enough for most things on Windows XP.

Video Card

We are now well into the rise of nVidia as the inevitable GPU superpower. The 6600GT while laughable by today's standards was quite an advanced and respectable card in its day. With 128MB and features that wipe the floor with the likes of 3dfx it made 3D gaming so much better.

Sound Card

Yes, there is onboard sound (and networking) on the motherboard of this computer, but you can't beat a real Soundblaster card for full compatibility, especially when it comes to older games. Plus the on-board sound doesn't give you MIDI or a joystick port. This SoundBlaster Live! originated in an old Dell computer, so it's the Dell OEM version of it, so the front panel audio connector is non-standard. But it's still a good card for this computer though.