The Zoostorm 4-6403 from PC Next Day stands out from its rivals in several ways. The curved, black Coolermaster chassis is one of the more interesting designs in this group. Perhaps more interesting is the choice of a 2.6GHz AMD Athlon64 X2 processor – the only AMD processor in a group otherwise dominated by Intel’s Core 2 Duo chips.

This configuration produces an overall Sysmark 2004 SE performance that’s noticeably below that of the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo models from Evesham, Mesh and the overclocked 2.5GHz Chillblast machine.

But like the Mesh Elite E6600, the Zoostorm’s games performance is bolstered by its Geforce 7950 GT graphics card. This produced the top scores in our Far Cry and 3DMark tests, so it’s got more than enough graphics and processor power to keep games fans happy. The inclusion of a second x16 PCI Express slot gives you the option of a twin-graphics card upgrade as well.

The Zoostorm’s 2GB of Ram and 320GB hard disk provide all the memory and storage space most home users are likely to need, and its 802.11b/g wireless networking, dual Gigabit Ethernet Lan adapters and memory card reader are all welcome extras.

There’s a 5.1 speaker system included with the Zoostorm – better than the 2.1 speakers provided by most of its rivals, although Mesh’s Elite E6600 does manage a full set of 7.1 speakers. The 19in flat-panel monitor provided good image quality, although it’s a standard 4:3 aspect ratio – some people might prefer a widescreen 16:9 monitor, such as those supplied with the Chillblast and Evesham machines.

Even so, it’s hard to fault the Zoostorm and the combination of features and performance will allow it to cope with just about any task that home users are likely to throw at it.

This article is part of a group test of £999 PCs
See also:
Introduction
Ambros Shuttle SD32G2
Chillblast Fusion Tundra 6300
Evesham Solar Creation
Mesh Elite E6600
Graphs and table of features can be read via our Pdf downloads above.