Custom Gaming Rigs Review

I play online games quite often, on a daily basis. So when a new MMOrpg was coming out, and my old computer had issues playing it during beta, my husband decided to buy me a new gaming rig. My old computer could barely produce 10 fps on the lowest possible settings in Age of Conan (the newest MMO out) and I really wanted to play the game when it officially launched without getting horrible hitching and waiting 5 minutes for my character to turn around!

I had previously bought my old computer from another "boutique" type company, which gave me a horrible experience. Not only was the old computer not finished when it was shipped to me, I constantly had problems with it from day one. I did not want to go through this again, and so I researched several companies using Google searches. I thought about going with Digital Storm Online, a company that my husband used 3 years ago to buy his latest gaming computer. I decided to search about their company on Google, and found 2 sites that did reviews on them: [H] Consumer Reviews and Reseller Ratings.

Don't get me wrong, Digital Storm is a great company. However, the first thing I do on Reseller Ratings is to look at the negative feedback a company receives first. Every company gets alot of bad reviews and so I expected that. But after reading the [H] Consumer review and looking at some of the more recent bad reviews from customers I decided to keep looking for a new company to try out.

After searching for computer stores with a 9.0 or higher score on Reseller Ratings, I came across companies like KC Computers, Vigor Gaming and AVA Direct. What interested me in AVA Direct over the previous 3 companies mentioned was their review from [H] Consumer. Their reviews are in-depth for every company, and they came out really well at the end, receiving a "Recommended" label, and also the [H] Editor's Choice Silver Award.

So once I settled on AVA Direct, I looked through their options for building a custom gaming computer. I was surprised at the variety they offered, and the starting prices were decent as well. I ended up going with an Intel-based SLI machine, which started out with a price tag of $1184.96. Here you can see a list of what the machine starts out with, and below I will paste what I ended up changing.

• _{INTEL, Core^TM 2 Duo E6750 Dual-Core, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache, 65nm, 65W, EM64T EIST XD, Retail}
• _{ASUS, P5Q Pro, LGA775, Intel® P45, 1600MHz FSB, DDR2-1200 16GB /4, PCIe x16 CF /2, SATA 3.0 Gbit/s RAID 5 /8, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail}
• _{MUSHKIN, 2GB (2 x 1GB) eXtreme Performance HP2-6400 PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL4 (4-5-4-11) SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC}
• _{MICROSTAR, NX8600GT-T2D256E OC, GeForce® 8600GT 580MHz, 256MB DDR3 1600MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDTV/S-Video-Out, Retail}
• _{SEAGATE, 320GB Barracuda 7200.10, SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200-RPM, 16MB cache}
• _{RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives}
• _{ROSEWILL, RCR-102 Black 52-in-1 Card Reader/Writer Drive, 3.5" Bay, USB 2.0}

• _{LITE-ON, LH-20A1L Black/Beige 20x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ LightScribe, SATA, Retail}

• _{THERMALTAKE, M9 Black Mid-Tower Case w/ Window, ATX, No PSU, SECC}

• _{CUSTOM WIRING, Standard Wiring with Round Cables}

• _{COOLERMASTER, eXtreme Power 650W Power Supply, 24-pin ATX12V, SLI Ready}

• _{MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM}

• _{SERVICE, OEM System Recovery (secure HDD partition only)}

• _{SERVICE, System Binder}

• _{GAMING PC, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)}

• _{SERVICE, Standard Shipping (UPS, DHL, or Fedex)}

MY SELECTED COMPONENTS - Total $1717.46 (includes $69.00 s/h)

• _{INTEL, Core^TM 2 Duo E8400 Dual-Core, 3.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 6MB L2 Cache, 45nm, 65W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail}
• _{ASUS, Silent Square Series CPU Cooler, Socket 478/775/754/939/940 Copper/Aluminum, Blue LED}

• _{ARCTIC SILVER, Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver}

• _{ASUS, P5K SE, LGA775, Intel P35, 1333MHz FSB, DDR2-1066MHz 8GB/4, PCIe x16, SATA 3.0 Gbit/s /4, HDA, GbLAN, ATX, Retail}
• _{G.SKILL, 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL5 (5-5-5-15) SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC}

• _{eVGA, e-GeForce® 9800 GTX 675MHz, 512MB GDDR3 2200MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDTV/S-Video Out, Retail}
• _{CREATIVE, Sound Blaster® Audigy® SE, 7.1 channels, 24-bit, 96KHz, PCI, OEM}

• _{SEAGATE, 320GB Barracuda 7200.10, SATA II 300MB/s, 7200-RPM, 16MB cache}
• _{RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives}

• _{LITE-ON, LH-20A1L Black/Beige 20x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ LightScribe, SATA, Retail}

• _{TRENDNET, TEG-PCITXR 10/100/1000Mbps Network Card, 32-bit, PCI 2.2}

• _{ANTEC, Nine Hundred Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU}

• _{CASE FAN, LED Fans Maximum Package, UV}

• _{CUSTOM WIRING, Standard Wiring with Round Cables}

• _{ANTEC, NeoPower 650 Blue High Efficiency Power Supply, 650W, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, SLI Ready, 120mm LED Fan, 5-Year Warranty}

• _{MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit, OEM}

• _{SERVICE, OEM System Recovery (bootable CD/DVD only}
• _{SERVICE, AVADirect System Binder}

• _{GAMING PC, Gold Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts & Lifetime Labor Warranty, Express/Priority Service)}

• _{SERVICE, Standard Shipping (UPS, DHL, or Fedex)}

For those of you that read that entire thing, when I ordered my setup in May the motherboards offered by Asus were an older model- AVA Direct has since then updated to newer model boards- but kept the same price. I found this to be nice, as I have now purchased a second computer from them!

My computer arrived about 3 weeks after I ordered it, which was decent considering that included shipping time. AVA Direct does a burn in phase and will even include pictures of the assembly if you ask them to do so. After you have ordered a computer with them, you do not even need to call their customer service department to check on your new computers status, you simply login to your account on their homepage and post a message on a bulletin board system. On average, if they were open I received a reply within 5 minutes from their Customer Service Rep, Misha Troshin.

My package arrived safe from UPS. Everything inside was neatly packaged and accounted for. Everything was hooked up correctly and worked from the first boot! I was very pleased with my whole experience with this company, and in the future I will continue to use them for my gaming computers.