jldavid
03-21-2007, 02:31 PM
A few months ago I started to consider buying a new machine to replace the 2003 vintage HP Pavilion 775 I've been using. Normally, I've gone near (but not at) the lower end of the technology curve to get the most bang for my buck. This time I wanted to go a bit higher and get not only better technology, but a higher quality build as well. I actually looked at HP and Dell but neither offered exactly what I wanted at a price I was willing to pay. Besides, I've bought from both of those vendors before with varying degrees of dissatisfaction. I don't game much, but I am a heavy multitasker that needs a reliable machine that will stay up, running and responsive.
I started my search by simply typing "custom built computers" into Google and found a bunch of companies (including VM) that could potentially do the job. A little more research and I stumbled upon the [H]Consumer review (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIxNSwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=) of the Velocity Micro Gamers' Edge PCX system and [H]ardForum discussions. Very encouraging so I went to the VM website and priced the system I wanted. It was more than I'd paid for a system in years, but then it was also more computer than I'd purchased in years. At that point I just sat on it for a while mostly because I wanted Vista on my machine but didn't want to be the earliest adapter. But I also wasn't going to make an impulse decision.
I finally ordered a ProMagix™ PCX High Performance Home & Office PC from VM on March 2nd:
Genuine Intel® P965 Chipset Motherboard with DDR2, PCI Express
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor E6600, dual 2.4GHz cores, 4MB L2 Cache
Arctic Cooling® Freezer 7 Pro Heatsink
LX Black - Velocity Micro Signature Case
500 Watt Power Supply
2048MB Corsair™ DDR2 PC5300 DDR667
512MB eVGA™ NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7600 GS, Dual Heads
250GB Western Digital WD2500JD 7200rpm SATA/150, 8MB Cache
20x Lite On® DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Dual Layer
16x DVD/48x CD-RW Lite On® Combo Drive
My overall experience with VM was pretty much identical to those in the [H]Consumer review. The ordering process was painless, they kept me informed of my system's progress via email and they shipped it to me the exact day that they said they would.
UPS delivered the box yesterday and I dove in. The only two things wrong were that the case was missing a foot (see the picture below) and they didn't give me my free T-shirt. :confused: The machine booted up beautifully, the initial setup process was painless and the machine ROCKS. The only "real" issue I had was that both CPU-Z and PC Wizard report that my 2.4GHz E6600 is running at about 1.6GHz. However, Vista, itself reports that it is running at 2.39GHz. I called VM tech support about this and one of the techs there said that he had seen this happen before on Vista machines. I've sent an email to the PC Wizard and CPU-X support people to see if they can enlighten me as to why I'm getting this strange result.
Here's a picture of the innards of my machine. (Note the missing foot at the bottom left.) Very clean and tidy. I'm sure that's part of the reason the cores are running at about 39C no matter how much load I've put on them so far. Very acceptable.
http://jldavid.paunix.org/images/VMInside.JPG
So far, I'm a pretty happy customer. I'll be even happier if they send me my T-shirt.:D
I started my search by simply typing "custom built computers" into Google and found a bunch of companies (including VM) that could potentially do the job. A little more research and I stumbled upon the [H]Consumer review (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTIxNSwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=) of the Velocity Micro Gamers' Edge PCX system and [H]ardForum discussions. Very encouraging so I went to the VM website and priced the system I wanted. It was more than I'd paid for a system in years, but then it was also more computer than I'd purchased in years. At that point I just sat on it for a while mostly because I wanted Vista on my machine but didn't want to be the earliest adapter. But I also wasn't going to make an impulse decision.
I finally ordered a ProMagix™ PCX High Performance Home & Office PC from VM on March 2nd:
Genuine Intel® P965 Chipset Motherboard with DDR2, PCI Express
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor E6600, dual 2.4GHz cores, 4MB L2 Cache
Arctic Cooling® Freezer 7 Pro Heatsink
LX Black - Velocity Micro Signature Case
500 Watt Power Supply
2048MB Corsair™ DDR2 PC5300 DDR667
512MB eVGA™ NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7600 GS, Dual Heads
250GB Western Digital WD2500JD 7200rpm SATA/150, 8MB Cache
20x Lite On® DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Dual Layer
16x DVD/48x CD-RW Lite On® Combo Drive
My overall experience with VM was pretty much identical to those in the [H]Consumer review. The ordering process was painless, they kept me informed of my system's progress via email and they shipped it to me the exact day that they said they would.
UPS delivered the box yesterday and I dove in. The only two things wrong were that the case was missing a foot (see the picture below) and they didn't give me my free T-shirt. :confused: The machine booted up beautifully, the initial setup process was painless and the machine ROCKS. The only "real" issue I had was that both CPU-Z and PC Wizard report that my 2.4GHz E6600 is running at about 1.6GHz. However, Vista, itself reports that it is running at 2.39GHz. I called VM tech support about this and one of the techs there said that he had seen this happen before on Vista machines. I've sent an email to the PC Wizard and CPU-X support people to see if they can enlighten me as to why I'm getting this strange result.
Here's a picture of the innards of my machine. (Note the missing foot at the bottom left.) Very clean and tidy. I'm sure that's part of the reason the cores are running at about 39C no matter how much load I've put on them so far. Very acceptable.
http://jldavid.paunix.org/images/VMInside.JPG
So far, I'm a pretty happy customer. I'll be even happier if they send me my T-shirt.:D