There are no problems to report during a weekend of usage. MV has taken a proven platform and assembled a PC that's as stable as any other system I've tested. As a performance comparison, and perhaps somewhat unfair, is a top-of-the-line Dell Dimension XPS Gen-4 that features a Pentium 4 560 CPU, ATI's excellent X850 XT PE PCI-Express video card, and 1GB of PC4300 DDR2. It's a full-blown tower that weighs in at around 18kg, so it's on the opposite end of the physical scale to the 7kg MV Cubik GamePro. The £1799 asking price, albeit with 19in CRT and Creative speakers, puts it a notch or two above the Cubik's immediate competition, too.

It's called the Cubik GamePro, and having a GeForce 6800 GT 256MB AGP card guarantees decent performance. Nearly 4800 3DMark 05 points is proof enough of the GamePro's 3D credentials. Think of it as a full-size system with a 6800 GT. That's exactly how it performs. Sheer sub-system grunt puts the Athlon 64 3500+ powered GamePro well ahead of a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 system.

Overclocking

I had high hopes that the combination of Athlon 64 3500+ and nForce3 Ultra would yield an impressive FSB-overclocking result. CPU voltage was raised to 1.55V, DDR was dropped to maximum memory limit of 166MHz, HyperTransport frequency reduced to 3x, and AGP locked in at 66MHz. Furthermore, the fan speed was increased to the maximum setting. Imagine the surprise, or shock, of tinkering with the system for 30 minutes and only achieving a maximum, stable overclock of 221MHz, equating to around 2430MHz. Performance for free, sure, but lower than the 2500MHz or more I'd expected - reports of 2500MHz-plus are commonplaced.

Verdict

The £1127 inc. VAT asking price sounds astronomical for a base unit that's barely larger than a toaster. However, adding up the internal parts and taking software costs into account, MV's charging around £150 for the assembling, installation, and 3-year warranty support that you wouldn't receive with a self-build approach. Is it worth it, then? For an experience builder who likes to go their own way, probably not. For everyone else who wants a sexy, svelte, quiet, small form-factor PC that's ideally geared up towards gaming, and who was £1100 burning a hole in their wallet, the answer has to be yes.

Being picky, I'd like a dedicated sound card to be included in the asking price, would prefer MV to ship the GamePro with 54g wireless installed, and would pray for a sample that overclocked better than the review model. Being a gaming unit, the inclusion of a decent, new gaming title wouldn't hurt the meagre bundle. That aside, MV's component choice and reasonable asking price makes the GamePro an attractive proposition for the consumer that wants both substance and style in one beautiful package. Just add in a TFT and a set of speakers and off you go. £1,100+ is a hell of a lot of money for a base unit, but the MV Cubik GamePro is hell of a looker and performer, too.

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