Evesham Axis 2400+MK

Evesham's Axis 2400+MK unsurprisingly uses an Athlon 2400+ XP processor. Coupled with two 256MB sticks of DDR memory, it achieved 205 in Sysmark. This high score is given a helping hand by the Leadtek Nforce2 motherboard, whose chipset is currently the fastest to support AMD processors.

This board offers good-quality onboard six-channel sound, which works well with the Creative 5100 speakers.

There's a S/PDIF (Sony/ Philips Digital Interface), two USB ports and an Ethernet port, as well as a dual-port modem, three Firewire ports, using one of the five PCI slots.

Inside the box is an 80GB Western Digital hard disk, 48-speed CD-RW and a 16-speed DVD drive.

This is the first time we've seen a 9500 Pro card. It's an ATI-branded model and, as such, will not be sold separately within Europe.

However, you can expect performance to differ only very slightly from the results attained here, as most ATI board manufacturers follow the design specification to the letter.

The card has a slimmed-down spec, but still requires the extra power connector used by the 9700, and performed about as well as we'd expect, giving us 11,439 in 3Dmark and 95.5 in Jedi Knight.

These could easily be higher with a faster processor, though; if coupled with a 2.8GHz Pentium 4, the 9500 Pro could really shine.

The inclusion of LG's latest 17in TFT monitor, the L1710B, is impressive at this price, as it's not cheap. It provides a sharp, bright image.

The Axis 2400+MK is a good value PC with some excellent components.

DETAILS
Price: £1,232 (£1,049 ex VAT)
Contact: Evesham 0870 160 9500
www.evesham.com