ABS Ultimate MS Vortex @ [H] Consumer

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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ABS Ultimate M5 Vortex - ABS’ Ultimate M5 Vortex desktop is targeted at gamers on a budget. Does this smart collection of hardware add up to a great customer experience?

I was expecting to see a box that was merely assembled from its OEM components with absolutely no value added to the integration. Instead I saw attractive packaging, a thorough owners manual, and customer service that went beyond its calling when they attempted to help us with our gaming issues - something usually reserved for the smaller boutiques that charge a premium.
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Please read our evaluation here and share your thoughts.
 
Chris_B said:
Just a quick uestion on this pic

http://consumer.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTEzOTg1ODQ3MzZzeE9jQjVDWEpfM181X2wuanBn

That kind of looks like a bit of damage to the case, or at least some bending of a part of the case but theres nothing referring to it on the page its on as far as i can see.
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"There was one thing amiss, discovered when we had to open up the “back” panel of the computer in order to get access to the floppy drive mounting screws. The panel was dented near the last thumbscrew hole, as if someone forced the panel too hard during the assembly. "
 
It's funny. I am an avid reader of these write-ups. Why? I don't know. I would never buy a pre-built system. But the reviews are great.

However, that being said, you guys are too easy on companies.

For example:

You gave this one a 8/10 on tech support. That's an 80%. That's pretty damned good in the grand scheme of things.

However, they:

Contract out to a 3rd party
Wouldn't cross ship
Couldn't answer your questions
Didn't get back to you.


That seems like enough to drop them down to like a 5, max. Basically, if I had actually spent over a grand on something like this, and ran into those four problems, I would have been pissed. Super pissed, even.

Anyway, other than that, great reviews. Your site is tops in my book as far as computer related reviews.

damon
 
Good review but I think you should have given them a lower tech support score because of the cross shipping. That is bullshit. It would really suck if you had something fail that was critical to the system like the power supply or video card. Also I'm not a huge fan of the trial nti software. An OEM copy of nero or ez cd creator is less then 5 bucks. For that they should bundle it in or at very least make it an option.
 
Subliminal said:
It's funny. I am an avid reader of these write-ups. Why? I don't know. I would never buy a pre-built system. But the reviews are great.

However, that being said, you guys are too easy on companies.

For example:

You gave this one a 8/10 on tech support. That's an 80%. That's pretty damned good in the grand scheme of things.

However, they:

Contract out to a 3rd party
Wouldn't cross ship
Couldn't answer your questions
Didn't get back to you.


That seems like enough to drop them down to like a 5, max. Basically, if I had actually spent over a grand on something like this, and ran into those four problems, I would have been pissed. Super pissed, even.

Anyway, other than that, great reviews. Your site is tops in my book as far as computer related reviews.

damon
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I was thinking the same thing and was coming here to say something, lol.

but also want to point out:
Software-wise, the computer was mostly clean. We’re not thrilled about having a trial version of NTI on the system, and the score is lowered accordingly. However, this is the only piece of trial software we encountered and it never interfered with the operation or stability of the machine. We also received full Windows and program disks for our software.
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If i bought a system, and in 15-30 days I could no longer burn CDs, I'd also be pretty pissed...!!! not only that but the last time I used NTI it was pretty shitty on the grand scheme of things. Alot of CD-Burners these days come with free copes if Nero Express, while simple and limited for advanced options, is very nice and easy to use. And it will handle all th ebasics of music, data, mp3, cd to cd, etc.
 
Another fine review.
I would have docked the support as well for the failure to call back. Also, the first thing on any automated support site for a PC game says: "most issues can be corrected if all drivers are the most up to date".....support 101 I think......That sure aint 80%.

The shipping thing doesnt disappoint me as much as the driver issue.

I do like the we'll call you, rather than waiting on hold listening to Wayne Newton.
I thought the notebook of drivers was well put together....it shows respect for the customer and care in the build. Althiugh I got Nero for free the last time I bought a DVD burner. I'd prefer that rather than self destruct in 30 days trial stuff.

I enjoyed the review as well from the performance perspective of the 6800 GS.
 
One thing I don't understand is why the gaming score was less than a 9?

Battlefield 2 was the only thing you mentioned that had any issue, but was related to a outdated driver.
 
OK I'll share my thoughts... it's becoming more and more obvious that you are painting yourself into a corner when it comes to scores. Most of the systems you review receive total scores in the upper end of the scale, so the question is why you are using only the upper 20% of the scale (8-10) to distinguish between descent and brilliant systems, and the remaining 80% (below 8) for mediocre and bad systems that you won't recommend anyway.

My suggestion is that you use the 1-10 scale only for systems you'd recommend buying, and leave the non-recommended systems without any score at all. This would be more useful to the consumer, and you'd save yourself a lot of trouble with subjective quantification and ranking of errors and other issues.

I also need to say that the Dell XPS 400 definitely gives you more value-for-money than this ABS, bloatware or not, so a difference in scores of 5 in favour of the ABS is absolutely ridiculous.
 
GAZZA said:
One thing I don't understand is why the gaming score was less than a 9?

Battlefield 2 was the only thing you mentioned that had any issue, but was related to a outdated driver.
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We are trying to apply the same yardstick we do in other categories. 8.7 is Very Good, according to our standards, but you know, there ARE better gaming experiences to be had. It's kinda like how we stay away from giving more than a 9 in Multimedia and Productivity for systems that don't have a dual core CPU.

Of course, the high value of the system is a factor, which is why Gaming in this article did not adversely affect the final score.
 
jon67 said:
OK I'll share my thoughts... it's becoming more and more obvious that you are painting yourself into a corner when it comes to scores. Most of the systems you review receive total scores in the upper end of the scale, so the question is why you are using only the upper 20% of the scale (8-10) to distinguish between descent and brilliant systems, and the remaining 80% (below 8) for mediocre and bad systems that you won't recommend anyway.

My suggestion is that you use the 1-10 scale only for systems you'd recommend buying, and leave the non-recommended systems without any score at all. This would be more useful to the consumer, and you'd save yourself a lot of trouble with subjective quantification and ranking of errors and other issues.

I also need to say that the Dell XPS 400 definitely gives you more value-for-money than this ABS, bloatware or not, so a difference in scores of 5 in favour of the ABS is absolutely ridiculous.
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I appreciate your need to bring up Dell during every discussion we have on systems evaluations, but the fact of the matter is that THIS is how we score:

9.5-10: Outstanding
9.0-9.4: Excellent
8.5-9.0: Very Good

The above three scoring ranges are ALL recommended systems.

8.0-8.4: Good (read: Average): We're not going to give these systems awards, but hey, go for it if you think you're getting a good deal.

7.5-7.9: Below Average

7.0-7.4: Poor

6.9 and below: Fail

It's kinda like school: The [H] Consumer school of how to build a computer we think we'd stake our reputation on. ;)
 
I also agree the support should've taken 1 point extra down, 'cause there were numerous issues with it. :eek:
 
ChrisM, yes I know that's the way you give scores. My point is that it is no good. 70% of the scale is completely useless (fail at 6.9 or less), and you only recommend systems with 8.5 or higher. By using the full scale for non-failed systems only you wouldn't have to resort to increments as low as 0.1 to differ between systems, 0.5 would be sufficient.

Re Dell, I keep bringing it up as the low score it received was not justified. You've admitted in this forum that the XPS400 is a decent piece of hardware, so I think you agree that it is better than a "failed" system, at least it's "poor" and deserves a score of 7 or better ;)
 
jon67 said:
ChrisM, yes I know that's the way you give scores. My point is that it is no good. 70% of the scale is completely useless (fail at 6.9 or less), and you only recommend systems with 8.5 or higher. By using the full scale for non-failed systems only you wouldn't have to resort to increments as low as 0.1 to differ between systems, 0.5 would be sufficient.

Re Dell, I keep bringing it up as the low score it received was not justified. You've admitted in this forum that the XPS400 is a decent piece of hardware, so I think you agree that it is better than a "failed" system, at least it's "poor" and deserves a score of 7 or better ;)
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Thanks for your thoughts, they are noted.
 
There are a number of issues raised about giving an 8/10 on technical support.

The four main points, as raised by Subliminal is that ABS:

Contracts out to a 3rd party
Wouldn't cross ship.
Couldn't answer your questions.
Didn't get back to you.
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Let me address these one at a time.

--- ABS does indeed contract out to a third party. By doing so, however, they increase their support hours and the techs at 2net were competent. When it came time to refer over back to ABS, they did so without any hassle. While we're not thrilled that the person who diagnoses our problems is not the person who built the computer, most builders of the size of ABS aren't going to have that.

Once you get to a certain volume, you really can't do it any other way. We WILL penalize for problems that came up that might have been solved if the person who was diagnosing the computer was intimately familiar with it. More on this later.

--- ABS wouldn't cross ship. We felt this was unacceptable and docked them a full point.

--- ABS couldn't answer our question about the audio artifacting in Battlefield 2. This was a very subtle problem that occurred in only one application - a game application, nonetheless. The tech stayed on the line with us and went through a number of steps to test out different configurations. He didn't get the right answer, most probably because he thought that the audio drivers that shipped with the machine were the latest drivers. (although there could be a number of other reasons, we'll never know.) At the same time, he didn't try to B.S. us and admitted when he was stumped.

Remember that bit about being "intimately familiar" with the machine? We can't guarantee that the person who put together our system would have solved the problem but we think they might have had a better shot. For this reason, we docked them a second point... that gets us to 8.0.

--- ABS didn't get back to us. This wasn't an issue. I was told that if they found out more information about the sound artifacting issue they would get back to us but unlike the Dell tech support, we were never told that we would get a phone call back. In short, I didn't expect a phone call from them regarding the issue, and they didn't promise one - only stated that if they figured it out, they'd give us a call and let us know. No penalty.

The final tech support score of an 8.0 is not exactly a place to rest upon laurels. This says that the tech support is merely "good." I'm not exactly raving about it, but if my mother had a computer problem, they'd probably be able to help her out, and if they couldn't help her out, they wouldn't try to give her any inaccurate information which would confuse her.

An 8.0 score shows adequacy with major room for improvement - If it helps, don't think of it as 80%. Think of it as a B-.
 
I enjoy reading these system evaluations. In my opinion, the final scores are not as important as the "guts" of the review. Personally, I wish each review had a total of what the parts would have cost off-the-shelf from someplace like newegg or monarch at the time . The reason I would like to see this - before I get flamed - is that it would provide a good reference point when comparing previously reviewed systems. Since the price of computer parts can change so rapidly, this would make it easier to judge if the performance and service matches the price premium that was paid. I can just see someone reading this review six months from now and thinking "you paid this much for a computer and you only got that?" Just something to think about.
 
milktoast said:
I enjoy reading these system evaluations. In my opinion, the final scores are not as important as the "guts" of the review. Personally, I wish each review had a total of what the parts would have cost off-the-shelf from someplace like newegg or monarch at the time . The reason I would like to see this - before I get flamed - is that it would provide a good reference point when comparing previously reviewed systems. Since the price of computer parts can change so rapidly, this would make it easier to judge if the performance and service matches the price premium that was paid. I can just see someone reading this review six months from now and thinking "you paid this much for a computer and you only got that?" Just something to think about.
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Thanks, that very sentiment is why we have a Value score. If we feel that what we paid was not on par with the quality of the product we received or the quality of customer service, we will be sure to bring it up.
 
Great review as always. I love these system reviews and they are the best on the web. The Dell deserved the score it got. It's decent hardware at a good price but is also proprietary hardware and you should not have to reformat the drive and reinstall the OS to get decent performance. Also their support is really bad and they don't sell AMD. I have to say out of all the reviews the Velocity Micro impressed me most which is why I have one on order. ABS is probably the price/performance leader for out of the box hardware.

jon67 said:
e Dell, I keep bringing it up as the low score it received was not justified. You've admitted in this forum that the XPS400 is a decent piece of hardware, so I think you agree that it is better than a "failed" system, at least it's "poor" and deserves a score of 7 or better ;)
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I bought a ABS computer about a year ago.(The last oem system I bought, I build my own now) I had a good experience with them, It would a decent comp for the money, dispite the fx5200... But that was plenty for me untill I started playing ut2004. The comp as always been rock stable, very easy to reformat, and had decent quality componets. The 3 ring binder was a huge plus to me, had everything I needed in it, with everything very well organized.

I am still using it now, just with a different case, psu, and video card. :)
 
well, i found out that some of the earlier reviews that I used to be able to read are now looking like this one as well. The only text I can read in the reviews are the links. Looks like some kind of change with the new format that isnt working for me. The Console and Enthusiasts reviews look ok, just the ones in the new consumer format are unreadable unless I highlight where the text is.

Edit: Well, the black on white format is very easily read now. :)
 
Another good review/ good read.

The Dell issue that was mentioned earlier is nil. If you read the opening explanation paragraph about what the H reviews are about you may understand why it scored so low. AND I agree that it should have scored low. Anyone can buy hardware that gives a good result; they ([H]) are reviewing the experience and apparently Dell values volume not quality when it comes to selling PCs. End-user experience, therefore, is lacking.
 
I don't get it, if a system equipped with 6800GS can get 8.7 out of you guys, what would you consider crossfire x1900xt's, 18.2 or something? Are these points heavily considering the cost of the system, are you giving it 8.7 compared to other systems that are only in this price range? I certainly think this must be the case as you also wrote in the review :
The Ultimate M5 Vortex is a good solid gaming system that performs well for gaming, with parts that perform up to par for their price range.

Even when you consider the price of the system, which is decent to say the least, I believe the cost of the system shouldn't weigh in so heavily in gaming since objectively speaking there are so many better gaming rigs out there and gaming is a very subjective experience. Some people wouldn't be cought dead playing with a 6800gs (I am not one of them). It seems like, in this forum, more people own better gaming rigs than the evaluated system, that's what I see in people's sigs anyway.
 
uniwarp said:
I don't get it, if a system equipped with 6800GS can get 8.7 out of you guys, what would you consider crossfire x1900xt's, 18.2 or something? Are these points heavily considering the cost of the system, are you giving it 8.7 compared to other systems that are only in this price range? I certainly think this must be the case as you also wrote in the review :
The Ultimate M5 Vortex is a good solid gaming system that performs well for gaming, with parts that perform up to par for their price range.

Even when you consider the price of the system, which is decent to say the least, I believe the cost of the system shouldn't weigh in so heavily in gaming since objectively speaking there are so many better gaming rigs out there and gaming is a very subjective experience. Some people wouldn't be cought dead playing with a 6800gs (I am not one of them). It seems like, in this forum, more people own better gaming rigs than the evaluated system, that's what I see in people's sigs anyway.
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Sure, you can get better performance out a faster and more expensive card, but you'd pay for it. The fact is that for the price, this system delivered a very good gaming experience - which is what an 8.7 amounts to. Remember, we don't care about the benchmarks, we care about the customer experience. There was not one game we couldn't play, and there were no stability issues. It's the whole experience, rather than a meaningless number.

Remember, you could always order this system with SLI 7800GT's - that would deliver a better gaming experience, but would add about $400 to the cost of the machine (going from cost of two 7800GT's vs. a 6800GS). You shouldn't underestimate the power of a 6800GS - it's a great gaming card that delivered a very good experience.
 
I am not argueing against the cost factor, I am just saying that I think it is best if you didn't only consider each system on its own leauge. For example if you review another PC from ABS with 7800GTX's in sli, you might also give that a 8.7 when compared to other pcs in its own league. That just seems a bit unfair therefore can't you at least tag each reviewed system a category such as ABS Ultimate MS Vortex Class 2 : Mid Range Gaming, ABS Mega Ultimate MMSS Double Vortex : Class 1 High End Gaming, maybe you can even give awards to each category at the end of each year... Anyway I am just brainstorming, I hope I made some sense as I try to explain what I was trying to say in the beginning.
 
uniwarp said:
I am not argueing against the cost factor, I am just saying that I think it is best if you didn't only consider each system on its own leauge. For example if you review another PC from ABS with 7800GTX's in sli, you might also give that a 8.7 when compared to other pcs in its own league. That just seems a bit unfair therefore can't you at least tag each reviewed system a category such as ABS Ultimate MS Vortex Class 2 : Mid Range Gaming, ABS Mega Ultimate MMSS Double Vortex : Class 1 High End Gaming, maybe you can even give awards to each category at the end of each year... Anyway I am just brainstorming, I hope I made some sense as I try to explain what I was trying to say in the beginning.
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Thanks for your thoughts, they are noted.
 
As usual, I enjoyed this review, Chris. I think you all at the [H] do some of the best system reviews published, whether over the net or in a magazine, because you rate the whole buying experience, not just the hardware. Kudos to you guys. :cool:

Now about the case they use, that is a rebranded Coolermaster Praetorian (I have 1 sitting beside me now) and the reason that it doesn't have usb or firewire ports in the front is that the place where they have the top blowhole mounted is also the place that the usb, firewire and FP Audio connections mount too. My case came with both the blowhole mount and also the usb/firewire ports, with the usb/firewire being already mounted in the case. That way Coolermaster let's you configure the top panel the way you want to. Too bad that ABS doesn't also include the usb/firewire module with the system as I really don't see the need for a top mounted blowhole in that case, but it is handy to have front mounted usb ports. The case doesn't have any heat related problems without having the top mounted blowhole, especially with an AMD system. I'm running an overclocked Opteron 170 with an X800XT-PE and I have no heat problems with the usb/firewire module installed.

I do think you should have graded a little harder on them for not cross shipping though, as that is pretty much an industry standard for oem machines that are under warrantee. Other than that, I think you did a good job on the review.
 
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