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The Akasa CPU cooler is also a cut above what you’d find in an average PC. It’s called the Evo 33 and features a central heatpipe that draws the heat away from the CPU and into the heatsink itself. A single 80mm fan is then employed to cool the heatsink.

Mesh also supplies a Logitech keyboard and a very basic optical Logitech mouse. To be honest this isn’t really a problem since most serious gamers will probably have their own weapons of choice when it comes to keyboard and mouse. You don’t get a monitor with the Xtreme Essential TRX either, although Mesh offers a range of suitable displays at an extra cost.

Apart from the extra x16 PCI Express slot the motherboard offers two x1 PCI Express slots and three PCI slots – one of which is taken up by a 56k modem. Mesh is using the onboard Realtek audio which offers 7.1-channels but it is not of the high definition type. At least Asus has fitted both optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs. I’m quite surprised that Mesh hasn’t gone for a separate soundcard, like one of the new X-Fi cards from Creative, but I guess it would have pushed the price up.

Dual Gigabit Ethernet controllers are also part of the motherboard spec as well as 400Mbit FireWire. Up to eight SATA drives can be connected, while an extra SATA controller from SiliconImage is also present.

Mesh has replaced all the cabling that comes with the motherboard in favour of clear cables from Akasa. The advantage of this is that the SATA cables are at a 90 degree angle, which makes the cable routing neater. Overall the build quality is neat and tidy – pretty much what you’d expect from an experienced PC builder like Mesh.

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