It's been over a year since my PC was last upgraded. Like many of the folks that visit nV News, I also upgrade my own system. This approach gives us more choices for procuring new components and becomes a rewarding experience after the upgrade is complete. However, unforeseen problems can arise during an upgrade. In those cases, you will assume a technical support role and begin the troubleshooting process. As a result of a motherboard failure, the upgrade was completed earlier than expected. Fortunately, the impact was minimal as all of the upgrade components I ordered had already arrived.

In the heart of the Polywell MiniBox beats an Athlon 64 X2 3800+, which is AMD's budget offering but that can be changed depending on your needs. Given the excellent thermal properties of the processor, the stock cooling is more than enough to keep things cool. Given the cramped confines of a SFF case, large aftermarket coolers wouldn't fit anyhow.

For the memory, our unit was configured with 1GB of SuperTalent CAS2.5 DDR400. For enthusiasts, it doesn't carry the reputation of Corsair or OCZ, but the ram is better than the generic no-names found in some OEM PCs and sport some heatsinks to keep cool.

The MESH Titan X1800 Fire system is, clearly, designed for the hardcore gamer whose primary concern is high-resolution gaming with framerate to spare. To that end, MESH has opted to use ATI's CrossFire system as a base, thus equipping the review system with a capable ASUS CrossFire motherboard and two Radeon X1800 XT 512MB cards that are pre-configured in full-blown CrossFire mode. Adding in more performance punch is an AMD Athlon 64 4600+ dual-core CPU that's only found wanting in very few circumstances. It's clear that MESH has designed this system to for a specific price point, yet we would probably choose an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ as the base CPU. Its £88 premium would be more than compenstated for the extra gaming performance afforded by double the '4600's L2 cache.

Given these test results, it?s obvious that AMD retains its gaming crown without serious challenge, and that the FX60 is heir apparent to the throne. Monarch?s implementation of the chip in its Nemesis Custom Gaming PC is flawless in all respects and an easy recommendation for serious gamers.

Here are some of the steps to take to ensure a successful installation as well as a stable SN25P system. All steps are recommended and in no way mandatory to follow these steps.

1. Remove/Disable Media Card Reader - On special occasions, a chance for the media card reader to be recognized by Windows as C:\ drive could occur. This would impact the proper installation of Windows XP so it would be safe to remove this connector before hand. Disabling the USB device is done within the BIOS.

2. Install Windows XP w/ SP2 - It is important to install the SP2 patch prior to installing the chipset drivers as it requires DirectX 9.0 and also you may encounter USB related issues without it.

3. Reconnect/Re-enable Media Card Reader - After fully updating Windows, connect/re-enable the Media Card Reader and reboot for Windows to assign appropriate drive letters to the Media Card Reader drives.

4(a). Install AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Driver for Windows XP - This is only applicable to people using the X2 processors. AMD Athlon 64 users go to 4(b).

4(b). Install AMD Athlon? 64 Processor Driver for Windows XP - This is only applicable to people using Athlon 64 processors.