Mesh Elite Quad 6600 FX: Best back to school PC ever?

Here at Crave, we're celebrating the end of British summer. But not because we hate Britain's perma-cloud and incessant flooding, oh no -- it's because it's back-to-school time! It's that time of year when the government forces our hoodied young to vacate the street corners, put down the cans of spray paint and actually go and learn some stuff.

And since they're all going back to school and leaving us free of harassment, why not reward them with a brand new PC that can aid their studies -- or at the very least help them spread their gang videos on YouTube?

We've already covered a bunch of cheapo laptops you can get for £499 and under, but arguably the best back-to-school PC we've EVER seen is the Mesh Elite Quad 6600 FX. It uses a quad-core CPU, which means it's among the fastest desktop machines on the market -- and best of all it only costs £699. No, that's not a typo, we're not missing a digit -- it really is stinking, dirt-cheap.

Here's what you get for your pennies: an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU clocked at 2.4GHz; 4GB of RAM; 250GB SATA hard drive; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT graphics card (for gaming); Microsoft Vista Home Premium edition operating system; 18x dual-layer DVD rewriter; Microsoft Works 8.5 (for all the homework stuff); and a cordless mouse and keyboard. An optional 19-inch monitor is available for an extra £100.

Remember the quad-core Sony Vaio RM1N that cost £2,500? This has the same CPU and more memory, which says an awful lot about Sony's pricing. How Mesh can afford to include all that stuff for £699 is anyone's guess, but we suggest you snap one up before somebody realises their mistake. 

We're going to conduct a full review with benchmark results and all the usual gubbins in the next week or so -- but in the meantime, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend buying it. Do it for the kids. -Rory Reid