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SS_Wehrwolf
Gawd
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2005
- Messages
- 632
Well its been awhile since i posted about ordering my new system, but it finally arrived on Thursday of last week. Heres a refresh on the system i picked up.
INTEL, Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core, 3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 12MB L2 Cache, 45nm, 130W, Retail
ARCTIC COOLING, Freezer 7 Pro Quiet CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink, Socket 775, Ceramic Bearing, Retail
SERVICE, Do Not Overclock
XFX, MB-N780-ISH9, LGA775, nForce 790i Ultra SLI, 1600MHz FSB, DDR3-2000 (OC) 8GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI /3, SATA 3.0 Gbit/s RAID 5 /6, HDA, Gb LAN /2, FW /2, ATX, Retail
CORSAIR, 4GB (4 x 1GB) XMS3 PC3-8500 DDR3 1066MHz CL7 (7-7-7-20) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
XFX, e-GeForce® 9800 GX2 600MHz, 1GB (2 x 512MB) GDDR3 2000MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDMI, Retail
CREATIVE, Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Audio, 7.1 channels, 24-bit 96KHz, PCI
HITACHI, 1TB DeskStar® 7K1000, SATA II 3Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache
RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
MITSUMI, Black Internal 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive
LITE-ON, DH-16D2S-04 Black 16x48x DVD-ROM Drive, SATA, OEM
LITE-ON, LH-20A1L Black/Beige 20x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ LightScribe, SATA, Retail
COOLERMASTER, Cosmos S (RC-1100-KKN1-GP) Black Tower Case, EATX, No PSU, Aluminum
CUSTOM WIRING, Standard Wiring with Round Cables
TAGAN, BZ Series Modular Power Supply, 1100W, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Triple SLI Ready
MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit, OEM
SERVICE, OEM System Recovery (bootable CD/DVD only)
SERVICE, System Binder
GAMING PC, Gold Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts & Lifetime Labor Warranty, Express/Priority Service)
SERVICE, Standard Shipping (UPS, DHL, or Fedex)
Well first of all, the ordering process went fairly smooth, i paid with by wire transfer thru my bank, and they got a bit confused, but it only took a day to rectify the problem, which was the company and the bank were different entities which the bank finally figured out after i spoke with them, so it was quite painless just an extra couple phone calls and the order was processed. However, they never charged me for the shipping in the initial order, which was a bit annoying but i just paid that with my credit card the day i rectified my wire transfer problem. The fault of the shipping charge was entirely theirs as the order was set up and an amount told to me via phone and email. Not exactly perfection, but being a bit enthusiastic about getting a new computer i should have realized this myself. Im deducting 1 point in the review for this error though.
The processing of the order, the actual build, was a bit unnerving since all that was listed for about 3 weeks was "Processing" with no email updates until i specifically sent an email to Joseph Mundy asking for a time frame and so on, then he assured me it was in the final process and should be shipped within the next few days, which turned out to be about a week. Mr. Mundy was always helpful whenever i spoke with him on the phone for the initial quote, and during the ordering and processing of the order however. Their website specifically states how to check the status of your order and has a listing of the key words they use to check the status. My only complaint is the lack of information about the order itself. "Processing" for a 3 week period, which basically means its being built/burned in and tested, is a bit vague and being enthusiastic about my new system, not nearly the amount of info i wanted.
When the system shipped i was notified by email that i could check their website for tracking information, and i was also sent an email from UPS with the tracking information itself so i had an easy link to check. It took a total of 3 days to get to me, without spending extra on faster shipping which was nice.
The system arrived in a very large box, inside the box was the case itself in its original Cooler Master Cosmos S box, surrounded by packing foam and those lovely shipping peanuts. It was a bit hard to get the case box out of the shipping box since i have recently been out of work with a bad back, but i just took it slowly and finally worked that sucker out and began removing everything.
Inside the case box was system itself, and it also contained another motherboard type box in the bottom of the shipping case which had all my discs/cables/manuals and even the Power Supplies handy little zip pack. Everything was fairly neat and tidy in the box itself, and i was given a copy of Ghost Recon 2, which i already have for my xbox 360, and that was the only game i was sent. Originally, when i spoke about the order and what i wanted with J. Mundy, he assured me id get a few games with the order, and for $4k, i figured id get atleast 3 or 4. Well i found out that was wrong as well. So i have to take a couple points away for the promise of a couple games that werent delivered. The case itself needed to be opened and an airbag removed, which i assume was there to protect the inside content from being damaged during shipping. Good thing i read the instructions and checked instead of turning the system on, woulda been interesting to see what would have happened if i didnt. heh
Having been able to test the system now for 4 days, i have to admit it runs very smoothly, but VIsta does have a bit of a learning curve, especially to find where the hell i have to go to get what im looking for, but thats the fun of the new purchase. The system booted right up, i installed Call Of Duty 4, World Of Warcraft, Crysis, World in Conflict, ET Quake Wars, Sins of a Solar Empire, Unreal Tournament 3, and Universe at War. I also spent time getting a lot of others nifty programs from the internet, bit torrent, ventrilo, patches and updates to the games, and some other nifty utilities.
Call of Duty 4 was the first game i played, and it was amazing. No problems with it since, i moved up to rank 12 already in a couple days of playing itm and its just plain gorgeous.
World of Warcraft looks a tad bit better than it did on my previous system, but its not really an astounding graphics game to begin with. I beefed up my settings quite a bit to try certain things out, and it runs just as good as on my previous system with a few more bells and whistles.
Crysis looked amazing as well, but it also locked up the first time i played it. Not having a reset button on the case i have, i was forced to power off and power back on again. Since i was just checking it out anyway i havent played it since. So when i do i will give you an update on it, as it was i had about 30 other programs/games to install and some raids to take care of in WoW, so i havent had the chance to get back in and try it yet.
Unreal Tournament 3 was the next game i tried. Its amazing. It constantly locked up on my old system but this beast ran it like a hot knife thru warm butter, very smoothly. I played for about an hour of offline content and was very impressed.
I havent gotten around to playing any of the other games yet since the NFL draft was on, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and regular real world stuff that i needed to take care of. But once i do will update this thread.
So all in all, with the exception of the order process problem with shipping, and the promised games which werent shipped, the actual system itself is great. Im hopin when the review is read i can get a few more games sent to me from Misha or Joseph, but who knows. All in all, the people were very friendly on the phone and in emails, the system was exactly what i wanted, no hardware was unavailable or changed, everything i ordered is in the system itself. It runs smoothly, i have downloaded half a dozen bit torrent files, movies basically, which run smoothly, and everything i was used to on my old system is much faster on this one. Previewing movies takes less time, .zip .rar files extract much faster, and the system has been powered on for about 40 hours now downloading bit torrent stuff, playing games, checking websites and email and doing menial tasks, and not one problem. Only Crysis has given me any type of a problem what so ever. So i have to say, at this point, im very pleased with the system itself, and id have to recommend AVADIRECT.COM to any of the thousands of HardOCP'ers. I give it a final review of 9.3 out of a possible 10.
INTEL, Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core, 3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 12MB L2 Cache, 45nm, 130W, Retail
ARCTIC COOLING, Freezer 7 Pro Quiet CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink, Socket 775, Ceramic Bearing, Retail
SERVICE, Do Not Overclock
XFX, MB-N780-ISH9, LGA775, nForce 790i Ultra SLI, 1600MHz FSB, DDR3-2000 (OC) 8GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI /3, SATA 3.0 Gbit/s RAID 5 /6, HDA, Gb LAN /2, FW /2, ATX, Retail
CORSAIR, 4GB (4 x 1GB) XMS3 PC3-8500 DDR3 1066MHz CL7 (7-7-7-20) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
XFX, e-GeForce® 9800 GX2 600MHz, 1GB (2 x 512MB) GDDR3 2000MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDMI, Retail
CREATIVE, Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Audio, 7.1 channels, 24-bit 96KHz, PCI
HITACHI, 1TB DeskStar® 7K1000, SATA II 3Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache
RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
MITSUMI, Black Internal 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive
LITE-ON, DH-16D2S-04 Black 16x48x DVD-ROM Drive, SATA, OEM
LITE-ON, LH-20A1L Black/Beige 20x DVD±RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ LightScribe, SATA, Retail
COOLERMASTER, Cosmos S (RC-1100-KKN1-GP) Black Tower Case, EATX, No PSU, Aluminum
CUSTOM WIRING, Standard Wiring with Round Cables
TAGAN, BZ Series Modular Power Supply, 1100W, 24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Triple SLI Ready
MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit, OEM
SERVICE, OEM System Recovery (bootable CD/DVD only)
SERVICE, System Binder
GAMING PC, Gold Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts & Lifetime Labor Warranty, Express/Priority Service)
SERVICE, Standard Shipping (UPS, DHL, or Fedex)
Well first of all, the ordering process went fairly smooth, i paid with by wire transfer thru my bank, and they got a bit confused, but it only took a day to rectify the problem, which was the company and the bank were different entities which the bank finally figured out after i spoke with them, so it was quite painless just an extra couple phone calls and the order was processed. However, they never charged me for the shipping in the initial order, which was a bit annoying but i just paid that with my credit card the day i rectified my wire transfer problem. The fault of the shipping charge was entirely theirs as the order was set up and an amount told to me via phone and email. Not exactly perfection, but being a bit enthusiastic about getting a new computer i should have realized this myself. Im deducting 1 point in the review for this error though.
The processing of the order, the actual build, was a bit unnerving since all that was listed for about 3 weeks was "Processing" with no email updates until i specifically sent an email to Joseph Mundy asking for a time frame and so on, then he assured me it was in the final process and should be shipped within the next few days, which turned out to be about a week. Mr. Mundy was always helpful whenever i spoke with him on the phone for the initial quote, and during the ordering and processing of the order however. Their website specifically states how to check the status of your order and has a listing of the key words they use to check the status. My only complaint is the lack of information about the order itself. "Processing" for a 3 week period, which basically means its being built/burned in and tested, is a bit vague and being enthusiastic about my new system, not nearly the amount of info i wanted.
When the system shipped i was notified by email that i could check their website for tracking information, and i was also sent an email from UPS with the tracking information itself so i had an easy link to check. It took a total of 3 days to get to me, without spending extra on faster shipping which was nice.
The system arrived in a very large box, inside the box was the case itself in its original Cooler Master Cosmos S box, surrounded by packing foam and those lovely shipping peanuts. It was a bit hard to get the case box out of the shipping box since i have recently been out of work with a bad back, but i just took it slowly and finally worked that sucker out and began removing everything.
Inside the case box was system itself, and it also contained another motherboard type box in the bottom of the shipping case which had all my discs/cables/manuals and even the Power Supplies handy little zip pack. Everything was fairly neat and tidy in the box itself, and i was given a copy of Ghost Recon 2, which i already have for my xbox 360, and that was the only game i was sent. Originally, when i spoke about the order and what i wanted with J. Mundy, he assured me id get a few games with the order, and for $4k, i figured id get atleast 3 or 4. Well i found out that was wrong as well. So i have to take a couple points away for the promise of a couple games that werent delivered. The case itself needed to be opened and an airbag removed, which i assume was there to protect the inside content from being damaged during shipping. Good thing i read the instructions and checked instead of turning the system on, woulda been interesting to see what would have happened if i didnt. heh
Having been able to test the system now for 4 days, i have to admit it runs very smoothly, but VIsta does have a bit of a learning curve, especially to find where the hell i have to go to get what im looking for, but thats the fun of the new purchase. The system booted right up, i installed Call Of Duty 4, World Of Warcraft, Crysis, World in Conflict, ET Quake Wars, Sins of a Solar Empire, Unreal Tournament 3, and Universe at War. I also spent time getting a lot of others nifty programs from the internet, bit torrent, ventrilo, patches and updates to the games, and some other nifty utilities.
Call of Duty 4 was the first game i played, and it was amazing. No problems with it since, i moved up to rank 12 already in a couple days of playing itm and its just plain gorgeous.
World of Warcraft looks a tad bit better than it did on my previous system, but its not really an astounding graphics game to begin with. I beefed up my settings quite a bit to try certain things out, and it runs just as good as on my previous system with a few more bells and whistles.
Crysis looked amazing as well, but it also locked up the first time i played it. Not having a reset button on the case i have, i was forced to power off and power back on again. Since i was just checking it out anyway i havent played it since. So when i do i will give you an update on it, as it was i had about 30 other programs/games to install and some raids to take care of in WoW, so i havent had the chance to get back in and try it yet.
Unreal Tournament 3 was the next game i tried. Its amazing. It constantly locked up on my old system but this beast ran it like a hot knife thru warm butter, very smoothly. I played for about an hour of offline content and was very impressed.
I havent gotten around to playing any of the other games yet since the NFL draft was on, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and regular real world stuff that i needed to take care of. But once i do will update this thread.
So all in all, with the exception of the order process problem with shipping, and the promised games which werent shipped, the actual system itself is great. Im hopin when the review is read i can get a few more games sent to me from Misha or Joseph, but who knows. All in all, the people were very friendly on the phone and in emails, the system was exactly what i wanted, no hardware was unavailable or changed, everything i ordered is in the system itself. It runs smoothly, i have downloaded half a dozen bit torrent files, movies basically, which run smoothly, and everything i was used to on my old system is much faster on this one. Previewing movies takes less time, .zip .rar files extract much faster, and the system has been powered on for about 40 hours now downloading bit torrent stuff, playing games, checking websites and email and doing menial tasks, and not one problem. Only Crysis has given me any type of a problem what so ever. So i have to say, at this point, im very pleased with the system itself, and id have to recommend AVADIRECT.COM to any of the thousands of HardOCP'ers. I give it a final review of 9.3 out of a possible 10.
