Evesham Axis-RD A-List

Specifications of the Evesham Axis-RD A-List Computer System:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Processor

512Mb Dual Channel DDR RAM PC3200 (installed as 2x256Mb modules)

256Mb ATI Radeon Crossfire Graphics

Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005

200Gb Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8Mb Buffer

16x DVD ROM

Dual Layer DVD Writer/CD Writer/DVD ROM

On-board audio

Creative I-Trigue Speakers (2.1 System)

Logitech Cordless keyboard and mouse.

Floppy drive

6 months free Bullguard antivirus and firewall

Gold 3 Year Warranty (2 Years On-Site, 1 Year Return to base, National Rate telephone support).

I purchased the Evesham Axis RD A-List in March 2006 from my local Evesham store. Having read lots of reviews and being a bit of a computer geek for some years now, It wasn't my first or even second choice machine. I had actually decided upon a MESH Matrix Titan supreme, but I needed the machine quicker than the 2-3 weeks MESH were advising for delivery, and so my second choice was an Evesham Axis RD-Plus, as that PC had also been highly recommended and I happen to have an Evesham store where I live, and I hoped to be able to go in and pick one up. Both these machines had been recommended by several different magazines, and both MESH and Evesham have a long track record of building top-quality PC's.

I was in the market for a "budget" PC (most magazines put PC's which are between £600 and £1000, plus VAT, into this category, with anything cheaper being considered "Superbudget" and anything more expensive being considered "Power").

So, as I said, I strolled into my local Evesham store one lunchtime and asked to buy an Axis RD-Plus. The blank looks from the staff did not hold much promise, and sure enough, this was not a stock item at the time, and the lead time to order was again around 14 working days. They only had 2 PC's in stock, and the closest alternative was the Evesham Axis RD A-List (somewhat confusingly named since the RD Plus was actually on the PC Pro A-List, and the blurb in the store catalogue was actually from PC Pro recommending the RD-Plus).

The RD A-List has almost the same specifications as the RD-Plus, but the differences are quite key. These are as follows:

19" Flat Panel Display (RD A-List only has a 17")

IGB Dual Channel RAM (512Mb on the RD A-List)

250Gb Hard Drive (200Gb on the A-List).

After some umming and ahh-ing I decided to buy the RD A-List. In my particular case I also opted to forego the 17" Viewsonic display (which is only a mediocre performer anyway) and purchase my own 19" monitor separately. This saved me £150 off the purchase price of the RD A-List. Also, the RD A-List is cheaper than the RD Plus by about £110.

The RD A-List is of the same design and finish as the RD-Plus, being housed in a midi-tower case with 4 large 5 1/4" drive bays (2 being occupied by the DVD-ROM and the DVD-writer) and one 3-1/4" drive (being occupied by a floppy drive, although the actual literature says that this is an optional item). The case is black and silver with funky blue LED's dotted around for power and so on.

Under a slide-up flap at the bottom of the case are 2 USB ports, a headphone jack, microphone jack and a firewire port. 4 further USB ports are located at the back of the machine, together with another firewire port, an sp-dif socket (for connecting a digital surround sound system, for example), a network connector, serial port, keyboard and mouse connectors and a legacy parallel port (for connecting older devices such as old printers).

Setting up the PC was generally quite simple and straightforward. The one glitch being the cordless keyboard and mouse, which came without instructions. Never having owned a cordless system before, I couldn't work out why, having plugged the receiver into a USB socket, the keyboard and mouse were not responding. I then noticed a "connect" button on the receiver, but pressing this also failed to elicit a response from either keyboard or mouse. I started examining the underside of the keyboard and the mouse and saw further "connect" buttons there. On a hunch, I held down the "connect button" on the receiver and on the keyboard at the same time, and hey presto, the keyboard started responding. I then had to do the same with the mouse and the receiver.

Another hiccup came when attempting to plug in the Logitech Wingman joystick and the Microsoft Sidewinder game pad from my old machine into the RD A-List. It turns out that there is no legacy game port on the machine. The only solution is to either buy new USB devices or purchase a converter.

Having set it up, the performance of the machine is acceptable, but hardly overwhelming. There is notable lag when fast-forwarding a video or a piece of music, and the supplied Bullguard software makes the PC freeze for a few seconds when it updates itself (there is no option to suspend these updates, nor to schedule them to occur at a more convenient time). Other than this the system has been the most stable I have ever owned, crashing perhaps once or twice in the 3 1/2 months I have owned it). It is also not sold as being a particularly fast machine (unlike the RD Plus), so I wasn't expecting much.

The machine comes supplied with Windows XP Media Centre edition, which, once you get used to it, is a great addition to standard Windows XP. This makes playing and organising of videos and music a breeze, and it looks great to boot. The experience is enhanced by the supplied creative I-Trigue speakers and subwoofer, which are punchy and have a good base.

Remember though, that this is not a true Media centre PC, which would allow one to watch TV, record straight to disk ALA Sky+, and be designed to be aesthetically pleasing in a living room environment.

Poking around inside is fairly easy, thanks to the case design, which allows thumbscrews alone to be used instead of normal screws, which can be discarded once removed the first time.

The layout is tidy, but there isn't much room for expansion. There is one PCI slot free. Well, strictly speaking, there are two, but the SLI graphics cards are so big that they actually obscure one of the free slots. This could have been overcome with a better choice of motherboard.

The system is not particularly quiet, so you probably wouldn't want to leave it switched on in your bedroom overnight to complete some downloads.

In summary, there is nothing wrong with this PC, but there is nothing particularly exciting about it either. If you've got another £100, or if you are prepared to wait 2 - 3 weeks, you'll get more for your money elsewhere, particularly if you want to upgrade later.