MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System Review

1. Introduction2. MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus3. MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. PCMark 86. 3DMark Vantage7. 3DMark 118. 3DMark9. Unigine Heaven Benchmark10. Unigine Valley Benchmark11. SiSoft Sandra12. Cinebench R11.5 64 bit13. Cinebench R1514. Media Encoding15. SSD Performance16. USB 3.0 performance17. Tomb Raider18. Metro: Last Light19. GRID 220. Splinter Cell: Blacklist21. Total War: ROME 222. Thermal Dynamics23. Acoustics Performance24. Closing Thoughts25. View All Pages

If you want a new small form factor system then today's review will be of particular interest. We are taking a look at the latest MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus system, built inside the tiny Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Case. It may be small, but this is not a system of compromise, as it ships with an overclocked Core i7 4770k, 240GB SSD, 16GB of DDR3 memory and a high end AMD R9 290 graphics card. Is it worth the £1,199.00 asking price?

There is no doubt that the Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX case is beautifully designed. We reviewed it way back in January 2013 and my colleague Henry Butt was impressed with the design, adding that it was quiet and exceptionally well built. Initially the price was high, but later in the year, the company managed to reduce this to a more reasonable £70 inc vat. Shopping online today, the price has dropped even further, to £65 inc vat.

When we initially received the MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System specification list we were intrigued. MESH decided to go the ‘full monty' by including a staggering list of high end components. I am very interested to analyse how the diminutive Fractal Design Node 304 will cope with this inherently hot running hardware.

Full Specification:

• Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX Case – White USB 3.0.
• 750W Cooler Master GX RS-750, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire.
• MSI Z87I WIFI – Mini-ITX Motherboard Socket 1150.
• New 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4770K Quad Core Processor (3.5GHz, 8MB Cache) @ 4.2ghz.
• 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Memory (2x8GB) Kit.
• 4GB AMD Radeon™ R9 290 – 4GD5 Gaming Series Graphics.
• 240GB SSD – Solid State Drive.
• 2TB SATA III 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8ms Hard Drive.
• Integrated 7.1 High Definition 8-channel Audio.
• Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, Intel® Wireless Display, Dual band up to 300 Mbps Wireless LAN (onboard).
• Microsoft Windows® 8.1 – 64 bit inc. DVD & Licence.
• FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft Office 2013.
• BullGuard Internet Security ver. 13 – 90 Day Trial (pre-installed OS required).
• Free 3 Years Gold Warranty – (2 Years Parts, 3 Years Labour, 3 Months Free Collect & Return).

Mesh securely ‘double box' the system. The image above shows the inner Fractal Node 304 box, which directly holds the Mini Gamer system.

An additional box includes all the accessories, which include the driver discs, manuals and extra cabling, left over from the build.

This is the first time we have had a ‘hands on' with a white version of the Fractal Node 304 Mini ITX chassis. We reviewed the black version of this chassis last year – you can see the full review on this chassis over here.

We like the understated front panel, it has no distracting buttons, or fans, but there is a vent running along the top, at the front.

Along the side are two USB 3.0 ports, alongside microphone and headphone ports. The power button is also located here, but you have to look closely to find it.

Both sides of the chassis have mesh vents to help ensure there is adequate airflow for the components inside. The bigger vent is directly in front of the intake fan of the graphics card.

MESH are using a WIFI enabled MSI Z87 motherboard. There are plenty of connectors at the back of the case, including another four USB 3.0 ports. It is important not to use the HDMI or DVI connectors on the motherboard, as MESH have installed a significantly more powerful AMD R9 290, with associated connectors running vertically at the side.

We feel it would make sense for MESH to use plastic covers on the motherboards HDMI, Displayport and DVI-I connectors as many inexperienced users may hook up their computer monitor here bypassing the R9 290 discrete solution, without thinking.


The insides of the MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System are neatly put together and we can see that they are using a Xigmatek Gaia SD1283 cooler on the Intel Core i7 4770k processor. MESH told us that they have upgraded the cooler since we received this review sample – they are now using the Thermalright True Spirit 120. They say this will not cost the consumer any extra even though it is £10 more expensive to incorporate into this build.

MESH have opted to use a reference cooled MSI R9 290 graphics card, which raised a red flag, especially in such a confined space. These are very hot running cards and the reference cooler has proven less than stellar in KitGuru's previous tests.
On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.





The MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System is built around the latest Core i7 4770k processor. These are hot running chips, so good cooling is important. As mentioned earlier in the review, MESH offer free overclocking to 4.2ghz.


An overview of the system that we discussed earlier in the review. The Intel Core i7 4770k has been overclocked to 4.2ghz. The Kingston memory is running at 2,133mhz with timings of 10-11-11-30 @ 2T. The MSI R9 290 is a reference clocked board, running at 947mhz.

We are pairing the system up with a 30 inch Apple CINEMA HD screen with a native resolution of 2560×1600 today.

The installed applications list was unusual. It isn't often we see a system builder including software such as PCMark 7, Unigine Valley and 3DMark by default. We would assume this was because this system is classed as a ‘review test rig', but we can't be sure how clean the install to the end consumer will be.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):

PCSpecialist Vanquish 230X:
Intel Core i5-4670K @ 4.2GHz
16GB Kingston HyperX BEAST @ 2400MHz
ASUS Z87-A Motherboard
120GB Kingston HyperX 3K SSD
1TB SATA III 6Gb/s HDD
3GB AMD Radeon 280X Graphics
CoolerMaster Seidon 120M Liquid Cooler
Corsair TX650M Modular PSU
Corsair 230T Case (NEW!)
Windows 8.1 64bit

Intel E5 2687W x 2
Motherboard: Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS
Coolers: Corsair H80 x2
Memory: 64GB Kingston Predator 1,600mhz 9-9-9-24 1T
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum Modular
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000FN
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD
Boot Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron GTX SSD
Secondary Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron SSD

Intel E5 2660
Motherboard: Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WIFI
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 16GB G.Skill ARES 2,133mhz @ 9-11-10-28
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000a
Boot Drive: Intel 510 120GB
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB WildFire

Intel i7 3960X EE
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS WorkStation
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator GT8 2400mhz memory
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2
Boot Drive: Crucial C300 128GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE

Intel i7 3820
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4-M
Cooler: Intel reference cooler
Memory: 8GB Corsair GTX8 @ 2133mhz
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: Lian Li PC60
Boot Drive: Crucial C300
Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro SE 240GB

Intel i5 3570K @ 4.2 – OCUK Prodigy Arctic Gaming System
Motherboard: ASRock Z77E-ITX Intel Z77
Cooler: Coolit Liquid
Memory: Corsair Vengeance White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Power Supply: OCZ ZS 750W PSU
Chassis: Bitfenix Prodigy Mini ITX Case – White
Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB HDD

AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Intel Core i7 990X
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred

Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

Intel Core i7 2700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.

Intel Core i7 2600k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3
Cooler: Intel XTS-100H
Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB

Intel Core i5 2500k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD.

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire.

Software:
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
PCMark 8
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Cinebench R15
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
SiSoft Sandra

Games:
Tomb Raider (Direct X 11)
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Direct X 11)
Total War: Rome 2 (Direct X 11)
Metro Last Light (Direct X 11)
GRID 2 (Direct X 11)

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus USB BluRay Drive
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.

Game descriptions are edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.
PCMark 8 is the latest version in our series of popular PC benchmarking tools. It is designed to test the performance of all types of PC, from tablets to desktops. With five separate benchmark tests plus battery life testing, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance. PCMark 8 is the complete PC benchmark for home and business.

The system scores 5,541 points indicating excellent all round performance.Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

The system scores a total of 38,106 points, which is excellent and a good indication of strong Direct X 10 performance with older games.3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

The system scores well, with a final score of 12,852 points. The AMD R9 290 scores well, just under 14,000 points.
3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.

Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.

To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”

The MESH system scores well in the latest iteration of 3DMark.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset.

A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the settings shown above at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

Thanks to the power of the AMD R9 290, the system scores exceptionally well, even when running at a resolution of 2560×1600.Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal.

This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

We use the settings shown above at 1920×1080 and 2560×1600.

Again, no problems powering this synthetic benchmark at both 1080p and 1600p.
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Intel's Core i7 4770k at 4.2ghz is a very powerful processor and it almost matches the overclocked Core i7 3770k while trailing a 400mhz clock deficiency.
CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

Strong performance at 4.2ghz, and ahead of the 2600k at 4.6ghz showing the improvements in architecture between generations.
CINEBENCH 15 is a cross-platform testing suite that measures hardware performance and is the de facto standard benchmarking tool for leading companies and trade journals for conducting real-world hardware performance tests. With the new Release 15, systems with up to 256 threads can be tested.

CINEBENCH is available for both Windows and OS X and is used by almost all hardware manufacturers and trade journals for comparing CPUs and graphics cards.

The Hyperthreaded Core i7 4770k is noticeably faster than the 4670k when both are clocked to the same speed. Both however are good choices for rendering duties on a budget.
CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.

Hardware acceleration is enabled.

The MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus completed the encoding task in 6 minutes and 59 seconds, which is extremely fast. As a reference point, the last generation Intel ATOM processors complete the same task in around 1 hour and 15 minutes. If encoding is important, always worth spending a little extra on a fast processor.
Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64.

We use this program to test the onboard 240GB Solid State Drive.

Performance of the Solid State Drive is excellent, scoring 524MB/s and 510 MB/s in the sequential read and write tests respectively. 4K QD32 performance is also very strong.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

ATTO shows performance peaks of 545 MB/s read and 530 MB/s write.
To test the USB 3.0 capabilities of the Asus Z87-A motherboard, we use one of the fastest drives we have – the Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB. We reviewed this way back in February last year.


Performance is very impressive, peaking at 315.2 MB/s in the sequential read test.

ATTO performance is lower than CrystalDiskMark, peaking at 270 MB/s read and 75 MB/s write.
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary.

We use the ULTIMATE profile shown above and test at 2560×1600.

Smooth frame rates, holding above 30 at all times. The system managed to generate an average of 42 frames per second.Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike.

4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.

We test this game with the built in benchmark with very high quality settings at 1920×1080 – details shown in the image above.

This is a very intensive test, but the system scores well. These results are without question a ‘worst case scenario' for real game play.
Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid. It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.

We test at 2560×1600 with the Ultra image quality preset, as shown above. 8x MSAA was enabled to improve image quality.

The engine runs very smoothly throughout our test environment, averaging 71 fps and holding above 50 fps at all times.Splinter Cell Blacklist is the sixth installment in the series. The game begins with Sam Fisher and his old friend Victor Coste who are about to depart from Andersen AFB in Guam when an unknown enemy force destroys the entire base. Assisted by hacker specialist Charlie Cole, Sam and Vic manage to escape, although Vic is injured after protecting Sam from a grenade. Soon after, a terrorist group calling itself “The Engineers” assumes responsibility for the attack and announce that it was the first of a deadly countdown of escalating attacks (called “The Blacklist”) on United States assets, declaring that they will halt the attacks only after the U.S. government accomplish the demand of calling back all American troops deployed abroad.

We test with a series of high image quality settings as shown above and with 4x MSAA and 16 x Anisotropic filtering enabled.

Excellent performance, holding above 40 frames per second at all times.Total War ROME 2 is the eighth stand alone game in the Total War series, it is the successor to the successful Rome: Total War title. The Warscape Engine powers the visuals of the game and the new unit cameras will allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield, which in itself may contain thousands of combatants at a time. Creative Assembly has stated that they wish to bring out the more human side of war this way, with soldiers reacting with horror as their comrades get killed around them and officers inspiring their men with heroic speeches before siege towers hit the walls of the enemy city. This will be realised using facial animations for individual units, adding a feel of horror and realism to the battles.

We test with the ULTRA profile at 2560×1600. Details shown in the screenshots above.

A demanding engine, but the MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System can maintain 30+ frame rates at all times, even at 1600p.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.

Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 60 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

The Xigmatek Gaia SD1283 cooler is actually very good, holding a load temperature of 73c in this confined Fractal Design chassis.

Now for the bad news.

If you read KitGuru regularly then you will already know what we think about AMD's R9 290 and R9 290x reference solutions. We do NOT like the reference coolers that AMD have adopted for their R9 290 and R9 290X graphics cards. Follow this hyperlink to read more about this.

The reference R9 290 is linked into the driver and Catalyst Control Center. The fan speed is limited to a maximum of 47 percent while the software simultaneously holds a maximum default temperature of 95c under load.

Obviously this continually running 95c GPU peak negatively affects ambient chassis temperatures as heat is expelled from the rear of the R9 290 PCB throughout the Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX chassis. After several hours gaming, the motherboard temperatures are higher than we would like to see after long periods of gaming.

Unfortunately Furmark shows that the R9 290 core is throttling under heavy load (dropping to around 800mhz frequently). Again, if you want to read more about this, visit this page.
Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The system is almost silent when idle, however when loaded the R9 290 fan spins up heavily raising the noise emissions. If Mesh had adopted a custom cooled R9 290 then this system would be significantly quieter.
First impressions of the MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus system are positive. The Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX is a fantastic looking chassis and having such a small physical footprint means that it is a perfect partner for a variety of tasks, including use in a living room, as a media center unit.

It is only when you look down the checklist of hardware that you realise this is no lightweight media oriented system build. MESH have included a Core i7 4770k – overclocked to 4.2ghz, an AMD R9 290, 240GB SSD, 2TB HDD storage drive, Wi-Fi enabled MSI motherboard and 16GB of fast 2,133mhz DDR3 memory.

Surprisingly the diminutive Fractal Design Node 304 is a very capable chassis and it would work perfectly well if it wasn't for the inclusion of the reference cooled MSI branded R9 290 graphics card.

Not only does the R9 290 PCB get boiling hot to the touch after gaming for any length of time, but the reference cooled R9 290 radiates masses of hot air into the Fractal chassis. While there is decent exhaust airflow and MESH engineers have tuned their cable management, it proves difficult for the chassis to maintain a good thermal curve. After gaming for an hour, the radiated heat from the rear of the R9 290 PCB passes through the center of the tiny case, causing motherboard temperatures to rise significantly.

This issue is exacerbated by the inclusion of the air cooled, hot running, overclocked Core i7 4770k. MESH do offer the Corsair H60 ‘All in One' liquid cooler, at further cost – although the KitGuru review sample wasn't equipped with this £27 extra. We do think the addition of a exhaust fan/radiator would help reduce 4770k running temperatures, and perhaps even help deal with the hot flowing ambient air inside the case.

We have discussed AMD's R9 290 graphics card before, detailing our views of the reference cooling solution. Not only is it running at a constant 95c under load, but we noticed in this MESH system that the core clock speed was throttling to below 800mhz on a fairly regular basis. This negatively impacts gaming performance by a noticeable margin. The MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus system runs faster when it is cooler, but after a while, you can see the gaming frame rates drop as the reference R9 290 cooler fails to maintain the thermal curve set up in the AMD driver.

AMD’s Catalyst Control Center does allow for end user adjustments, but you need to be very careful on the settings. If you set the working temperature to a maximum of 85c for instance, but don’t increase the maximum fan speed, then the card will throttle substantially more under load – AMD have set it to 95c for a reason, not because they suddenly worked out that ‘hotter is fine’. The end user either has to accept a very high running temperature or an increase in fan noise when playing games.

Sadly, by default, the reference cooled R9 290 is quite loud so you will not want to be increasing fan speeds any further. It is a Catch 22.

While we can't blame MESH for AMD's R9 290 reference cooling issues we do have to question why they are not bundling a custom cooled R9 290 solution, especially when it is running within such a small chassis. In a traditionally shaped full tower chassis heat rises, removed by exhaust fans fitted to the rear and top of the case. In the tiny box shaped Fractal Design Node 304 this is not possible and excess hot air is pushed from the rear of the R9 290 PCB across the surface of the MSI motherboard.

MESH should really be using one of the latest custom cooled R9 290's, such as this one from Sapphire, which we reviewed back in December.

Overall, we have mixed views about the MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System. There is no doubt that MESH have built a fantastic looking, high performance system using a checklist of expensive components. Unfortunately combining an air cooled, overclocked Core i7 4770k processor with a reference cooled R9 290 proves a little much for the Mini ITX case to handle.

You can build your own on the MESH website, here.

Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE.

Pros:

• excellent built quality.
• great all round performance.
• fairly competitive pricing.
• overclocked.
• quiet when idle.

Cons:

• hot running inside the chassis.
• reference cooled R9 290 will throttle more as ambient temperatures rise.
• will get loud under load.
• Component selection could be improved.

Kitguru says: The full potential of this system hasn't been met – Mesh should use an all in one liquid cooler by default and a custom cooled R9 290. Still, MESH show signs of improving build quality and cable routing.

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