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Vigor Gaming Force Recon @ [H] Consumer

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Vigor Gaming is a company that really wasn't on our radar until several readers starting asking about them. We decided to pick one up to see what they're like. Our newest article from Josh Norem shows us how being good, but not great can impact the consumer experience.

This is a system that delivers on its “gaming” promise without ever really exceeding our expectations, but never falling too short of them either. It’s essentially a “you get what you pay for” machine, in that there’s no extravagant goodies included, no exceptional internal wiring, but instead a very solid machine that does what it’s supposed to do without any hassles or problems.
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Thanks for reading!
 
I read the entire review. It was a very good one and well written. The first time I heard about VigorGaming was when SIN Episodes: Emergence came out, and they were showing ads with limited edition SIN Episodes laptops/desktops. At first I thought they just appeared out of nowhere as an amateur OEM company, but your review changed my perspective. It's very cool that they didn't install as much junk as Dell, Gateway, or Velocity Micro. They also made good choices on the hardware, and it seems that RMAing the video card went smoothly. I also thought it was funny when you said the colors in 3DMark06 reminded you of a Metallica concert, and that the video card was the culprit of the computer's instability. However, how was their customer support?
 
Mr. Stryker said:
It's very cool that they didn't install as much junk as Dell, Gateway, or Velocity Micro. QUOTE]

This comment surprised me a little. It's no secret that Dell and Gateway come loaded with bloatware, but I just bought a Velocity Micro ProMagix, and it literally came with NO bloatware whatsoever. If I recall, all that came on it was Nero and a cd labeling program. How could you make that comment when the Vigor machine included an AOL icon on the desktop??

The real surprise in that review was the lack of ANY paperwork. Not even a one-sheet with customer support information. My VM machine not only came with a great binder filled with information, but also a one-sheet telling you exactly what to do if your machine was damaged in transit. It's shocking that Vigor wouldn't at LEAST give you basic instructions of what to do if your machine was damaged in transit...
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Nice article.
Looks like a nice solid computer with no frills.
The video card jinks lives on!!!! I am constantly amazed that you guys get all these bad cards.
Great support. I liked that the guy followed up,twice.
Solid write-up. Close to aflat out recommendation, if they had paid a little more attention to detail.
 
magoo said:
The video card jinx lives on!!!! I am constantly amazed that you guys get all these bad cards.
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The game of GPU roulette is now the biggest draw for the system reviews for me! It's a new drama--Will the video card make it to [H] intact? Find out on the next episode of [H]Consumer!
How big is Vigor as a company?
 
This comment surprised me a little. It's no secret that Dell and Gateway come loaded with bloatware, but I just bought a Velocity Micro ProMagix, and it literally came with NO bloatware whatsoever.
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Agree 100%. VM is top notch. Original poster is either misinformed or confused.
 
Did anyone notice that the first 8 pages are the traditional white of [H] Consumer and the last
two pages are the black of [H] Enthusiast?

Wait now only page 9 is in black.
 
They didn't perform any QA since the graphics fail after 5 minutes, and they still get a 6/10 for build quality? What do they have to do to get a 1/10, forget the insides and accidentally fill the case with captain crunch?

You guys never seem to get a working computer on the first try, which is fine, because I guess it doesn't bother you very much. As a real consumer, if I just spent $1500 on an AMD system, (which seems pretty damn unlikely) I assure you that I would be deeply upset by having to wait an extra week to start playing my games.
 
Oh, but I thought that I might have seen [H]'s evaluation of a recent VM computer a couple months back and it was loaded with a lot of programs. I could be wrong. If I am, then I'm sorry. :eek:

mentok1982 said:
Did anyone notice that the first 8 pages are the traditional white of [H] Consumer and the last
two pages are the black of [H] Enthusiast?

Wait now only page 9 is in black.
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Rofl, I noticed that too.
 
Great review, I'm glad that even though Vigor's a small integrator, they're able to provide reasonable service. They're officially in my Recommendations list.

Also, a minor typo on the support eval page?

"We left a message at 3:25PM CST on a Friday.

At 5:30PM, we received a callback from a gent named Tommy. We explained our problem to him, and he told us to upgrade the video card drivers. We told Tommy that we had already done this.

Next he told us that it might be a RAM problem, so he told us to take one stick out at a time and see if the problem persisted, and to then call them back.

We performed the RAM test, but the problem remained. We called back at around 3:45PM CST."

Did you mean " We called back at around 5:45PM CST." ?



Quoted for hilarity:
schizo said:
accidentally fill the case with captain crunch?
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schizo said:
They didn't perform any QA since the graphics fail after 5 minutes, and they still get a 6/10 for build quality? What do they have to do to get a 1/10, forget the insides and accidentally fill the case with captain crunch?

You guys never seem to get a working computer on the first try, which is fine, because I guess it doesn't bother you very much. As a real consumer, if I just spent $1500 on an AMD system, (which seems pretty damn unlikely) I assure you that I would be deeply upset by having to wait an extra week to start playing my games.
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Build quality isn't a category where we discuss/consider faults with the system. It's more how about how well built the system is, how nice the interior is, etc. It is essentially about how much time and effort was put into building this particular system.

We gave this system a six out of ten because it was acceptable but not anything remarkable. And then the score was lowered due to some misteps by Vigor.

As for the issue with systems not working, indeed, practically every system we get has something wrong with it, even from vendors such as Voodoo and Falcon. It's truly bizarre, but this seems to be the state of the industry today. It does bother us, but we generally won't hit a vendor too hard about it as long as they fix the problem quickly and efficiently. Like we've said before, we don't expect perfection every time, but when we do have a problem (bad video card, etc), we just want it fixed quickly.

Vigor fixed it in two days, and didn't even argue at all (unlike Dell), and once we had the new card the system was flawless.
 
daftie said:
Great review, I'm glad that even though Vigor's a small integrator, they're able to provide reasonable service. They're officially in my Recommendations list.

Also, a minor typo on the support eval page?

"We left a message at 3:25PM CST on a Friday.

At 5:30PM, we received a callback from a gent named Tommy. We explained our problem to him, and he told us to upgrade the video card drivers. We told Tommy that we had already done this.

Next he told us that it might be a RAM problem, so he told us to take one stick out at a time and see if the problem persisted, and to then call them back.

We performed the RAM test, but the problem remained. We called back at around 3:45PM CST."

Did you mean " We called back at around 5:45PM CST." ?



Quoted for hilarity:
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You are right. It's been fixed. Thanks
 
I also thought it was bizzare the support guy answered the phone lines with only "Hello?" .... What's up with that??
 
slowdive said:
I also thought it was bizzare the support guy answered the phone lines with only "Hello?" .... What's up with that??
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It may very well be that their phone system rolled the call over to a "private line" and not one of their business lines and the guy answered like he was on his own phone. It happens at my office every once in a while like that.
 
I would never recommend a machine that hadn't been through QA. When did shipping DOA product become acceptable if they fix it quickly? DOAs should not be recommended except for clear cut shipping damage. Just my opinion.
 
Good review, as always.
I also noticed that the review switched from white to black and back to white part way through.

One quick question: I may have missed this when reading, but did you have to pay to ship the defective card back?
 
We mentioned that they did not include a shipping label with the replacement card and that we would have had to ship the replacement back on our own dime - which is one of the things we were trying to avoid with the cross-shipping process. We actually mentioned this on the Conclusion page.
 
Thanks for the answer. My bad for not noticing that, I skimmed the conclusions very quickly because I thought I was in a hurry to be somewhere. Turns out I was wrong.

On the issue, though, it would make me unhappy to have to pay to ship a defective part back. To me that would be like buying a new TV, finding out it was damaged by the store's employees, exchanging it at the store AND having to pay a restocking fee. Ok, not a great example, but it just doesn't feel right.

This is why I'm a huge fan of Dell's complete care warranty. 2 motherboard replacements and 1 keyboard replacement in my 600m, didn't cost me a dime.
 
I wish [H] would sit down with NV and have a pow-wow about these video cards. Apparently something is terribly wrong.

I know that NV licenses to other manufacturers but, come on... surely they test these $500 cards before they let them ship. :rolleyes:

I have read almost every consumer review and so far have not seen ATI cards with issues. Maybe I have selective memory though, there have been less systems with ATI in them as well.

Once again a good article; thanks for the read.
 
Another typo is that on page 8 of the review it says that it comes with a full xp pro disk. Specs just say xp but the pic of the disks that came with it show xp home.

Other then some typos a pretty good review.
 
slowdive said:
Mr. Stryker said:
It's very cool that they didn't install as much junk as Dell, Gateway, or Velocity Micro. QUOTE]

This comment surprised me a little. It's no secret that Dell and Gateway come loaded with bloatware, but I just bought a Velocity Micro ProMagix, and it literally came with NO bloatware whatsoever. If I recall, all that came on it was Nero and a cd labeling program. How could you make that comment when the Vigor machine included an AOL icon on the desktop??
Click to expand...

This was probably a pass over from the Audigy 2 sound card. Creative bundles in such things with their drivers/install packages.

I've find personally that OEM's are hit and miss with bloatware on the computers, often times it can depend on the hardware (such as the Audigy 2 case here, they dont remove this crap for you) and also on the model. Lower end models being more likely to include the crapware.
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They are paid to include the crapware. Dell doesn't bundle a 90-day mcafee, AOL, earthlink, limited nero, etc, out the goodness of their hearts. They do so in the hope that you'll pay for the full mcafee or subscribe to earthlink DSL. Agreements to include these things allow the large OEMs to offer lower prices, in most cases significantly lower.

They also have major advantages with windows pricing-- dell pays a lot less for bundled XP than vigor or velocity micro. Not like 20% less, more like $5 per machine sold. This came up in the MS monopoly hearings a few years ago. It's one of the reasons why boutique makers have such a tough time remotely competing on price.
 
good review.

I almost pulled the trigger on a new Vigro pc, but after the review, I decided to wait a while.

I do think they offer an Intel Core 2 Duo processors, not on their most high-end (Force Recon), but at "Delta Force" level. Here is what the reviewer said:
===============================================================
"Interestingly, every Force Recon PC is AMD-based, as the company offers no Intel processors in its most high-end configuration. We looked at all of its desktop offerings and could not find a single option for ordering an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Surprisingly, the second-tier configuration, the Delta Force, does offer Intel processors, but just the old Pentium D models, which are now essentially two generations behind the current Intel Core 2, which makes them as outdated as Kyle’s picture in CPU magazine. Every high-end integrator is using Core 2 Duo (or Core 2 Extreme) processors in its top-of-the-line gaming machines, so we’re a bit displeased that this is not an option at all with Vigor. Perhaps the company doesn’t have the market cache to acquire Intel’s latest CPUs at this time. "
===============================================================

Here is the "Delta Force" configuration I was thinking about buying:

PROCESSOR Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6700 at 2.67GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 4M Cache
RIG COOLING Vigor MonsoonTM II TEC Active CPU Cooling Air Conditioner System with Triple 120MM Case Fan
RIG POWER Enermax nVidia-SLI Certified EG701 AX Noisetaker 600Watt Power Supply
MB CORE LOGIC Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe nVidia nForce 4 SLI X 16 w/1066MHz FSB
MEMORY 2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 1066MHz Memory (2 X 1024MB)
DATA HARD DRIVE 1 250GB S-ATA II 7200 RPM Hard Drive
DATA HARD DRIVE 2 250GB S-ATA II 7200 RPM Hard Drive
RAID SETTING RAID 0 Performance - Striped Drives (2 Identical Hard Drives Only)
VIDEO CARD (SLI SLOT 1) nVidia GeForce 7950 GT 512MB @550MHz, DVI and TV Out
VIDEO CARD (SLI SLOT 2) nVidia GeForce 7950 GT 512MB @550MHz, DVI and TV Out
OPTICAL DRIVE 1 Internal 16X Dual Layer DVD+/- RW + 24X CDRW Rewritable Drive
SERVICE Standard 3 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty
Price: $2545.00

I thought it was a very good deal compare to VM, plus it has the right power supply, the cooling and DDR2 1066MHz memory which I could not find anywhere else.

But after reading the review, I felt they kinda of did an amatuerish job. So I might go back to VM.
 
There is one glaring oversight, though. Vigor bundled the wires so tightly along the edge of the motherboard that the internal audio connector, which is used to connect the front-mounted headphone and microphone jacks, could not be attached to its connector on the corner of the motherboard. As such, the front connectors are simply decoration and are not functional.
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Does it really matter when using a PCI sound card unless it is one of the rare units that have standardized pins for front ports? I would think that sound card manufacturers would include those more often because more and more cases have the front ports, and especially at this point with motherboards sporting decent onboard sound and most PCI sound cards not having front ports, I'd think it would be a selling point. However, all I see is the Chaintech AV710 with front ports. Whoops, went off on a tangent. Back to this system...

I don't recall hearing much on "Allied" PSUs, but do recall seeing them bundled with cheap cases. I would have felt better with a cheaper case (same case sells on Newegg for $190) and a better PSU.
 
We evaluated the system in early-to-late September, so it must have just gotten the Core 2's very recently. It did not offer them when we were evaluating the system.
 
If anything the front audio should have been hooked to the sound card, which is very easy to do on the SB cards with the white connector. I usually end up just hot-gluing the wires in place but it does work fine.

Also a note on Allied power supplies: I like them a lot, They have always been very stable and reliable, and I have gone through litterally 1000's of them over the years with very few failures.

But for a high-end machine like this, even the 500w is only 'ok'.
 
thorndike112 said:
good review.

I almost pulled the trigger on a new Vigro pc, but after the review, I decided to wait a while.

I do think they offer an Intel Core 2 Duo processors, not on their most high-end (Force Recon), but at "Delta Force" level.
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They (very) recently refreshed their hardware options. There are many components available now, including Core 2's, that weren't available last week, much less earlier in the month when we were putting together the article.
 
Great review. They seem to be a better company than expected, yet still not one I could recommend. I was expecting something similar to CyberPower. A few things:

[H] said:
The hard drive cage has a 120mm fan in front of it that is as loud as a jet engine and is complete overkill for just a single hard drive. If there were four hard drives, this much airflow might come in handy, however.
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I believe this fan is not primarily used for cooling the hard drives, but as in an intake for the entire system. Cooling the hard drives is a secondary priority, I think.

What is up with that low World Bench score and then a speedy encoding time? Did you guys ever figure why that was?

I can't wait for more!

~Ibrahim~
 
It's an intake fan for the whole case, but I personally don't really think that "air enters the front, rises up and exits the back" setup actually works anymore due to how long video cards have become.

In the typical system, the videocard extends all the way over to the hard drive cage, creating an upper and lower compartment. The Videocard can cool itself. The mainboard is usually rated for temps up to 80C or so, so I'm not concerned about that getting hot. So typically, all this fan does is cool the hard drives.

And having a 100CFM fan for one hard drive is a bit like drying your hair with a leafblower instead of a hair dryer.
 
ikjadoon said:
What is up with that low World Bench score and then a speedy encoding time? Did you guys ever figure why that was?
Click to expand...

Since the test is completely automated, it's hard to see what specifically affected the testing. It was just slower, for whatever reason.

Generally, a Raptor drive will give a system a big advantage over a 7200 drive in a similarly configured system. That's why the Hellcat and FBox did better, but the E2200 had a Core 2, which has shown to be a beast in this benchmark.
 
I see what you mean with the upper and lower compartments...Even though, it would have to be unbearably loud for me to disconnect it.

A leaf-blower, lol.

So World Bench analyzes not just the CPU, but the hard drives, GPU, etc while the encoding test is mainly a CPU and optical drive related test. Gotcha.

~Ibrahim~
 
Am I the only one who finds the case hideous? A window should be showing the goods, mobo, vid card, etc. It shouldn't be showing the drive cages and messy wiring.
 
The few makers who have good wiring, like Overdrive PC and FNW, have no windows which is a real shame. They have impeccable wiring, beyond zip-ties..
~Ibrahim~
 
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