Evesham Evolution 2.4

The Evesham Evolution 2.4 is a well-specified system, worth every penny of its £1,173 asking price.

At the heart of the PC is a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 processor partnered with 512MB of PC2100 DDR memory, although the hard disk is a little on the small side at 80GB.

This system performed very well in our benchmark tests, with a respectable overall score of 230 in Sysmark 2002.

An Intel 845E chipset powers Asus's P4B533-V motherboard and gives the Evolution an excellent upgrade path: four out of six PCI slots are unoccupied and there are two spare Dimm slots for additional memory.

The board also houses six USB2 ports. You will find two of these at the front of the Evolution with a further four at the rear.

USB2 boasts transfer speeds of up to 480Mbps, 40x faster than conventional USB1, and is backwards-compatible with USB1 devices.

The Nvidia Geforce4 Ti4200 graphics card produced very respectable scores of 10,334 in 3Dmark 2001 and 88.2 fps (frames per second) in Jedi Knight II.

Creative's excellent Audigy Player soundcard and 5300 Inspire 5.1-channel speakers will allow you to take full advantage of the Evolution's gaming capabilities.

Inside, the Evolution is neatly laid out. Power cables are bound in plastic spiral casing and drive ribbon cables are clipped up to improve airflow.

Even the cable connecting the two USB2 ports at the front of the system to the motherboard is neatly clipped along the side of the case. At the front of the system is one free 3.5in bay along with a spare 5.25in bay for future upgrades.

The LG Flatron 915FT+ 19in monitor is one of the best in its class with an 18in viewable diagonal and maximum resolution of 1,600 x 1,200.

At the rear there is another USB port, bringing the total number of USB sockets in this PC up to an impressive seven.

In common with most Evesham systems, this model comes with the usual bundled copy of security software Big Fix, but this time the manufacturer has also thrown in a copy of video-editing package Pinnacle Studio 7.

The Evolution's impressive test performance, coupled with a good-quality monitor and substantial internal expansion opportunities, make this an appealing buy.

SPECS

• 2.4GHz P4
• Asus P4B533-V motherboard
• 512MB of PC2100 DDR memory
• 80GB hard disk
• 16x DVD Samsung DVD-Rom
• Geforce4 Ti4200 graphics
• LG Flatron 915FT+ monitor
• Creative Audigy Player sound card
• Creative Inspire 5300 5.1 speakers
• 56K modem
• Windows XP Home
• Pinnacle Studio 7
• Big Fix
• 2yr on-site, 1yr RTB warranty

DETAILS
Price: £1,173.38 (£999 ex VAT)

Contact: Evesham 0870 160 9500
www.evesham.com