AVADirect's new slimtower GT3 custom gaming PC.
(Credit: AVADirect)We can't help but feel a little responsible for AVADirect's newly announced GT3 Custom Gaming PCs.
A few months back, we linked to a blog post from Ed Borden highlighting GTR Tech's seemingly ignored GT3 slim tower desktop case as a 2-year-old precursor to HP's Firebird. Following that post, we heard from an enthusiastic Misha Troshin, CMO of AVADirect, informing us of his intention to sign up with GTR Tech for the GT3.
A chief benefit of the GT3 is that it offers a slim profile, but it also lets you add a full-size graphics card. Based on AVADirect's high-end processor offerings, including Intel Core i7 Extreme chips, we don't believe it's using the GT3 to go after both a small footprint and power efficiency, making it more in keeping with the likes of Falcon Northwest's FragBox 2 and Maingear's X-Cube, as opposed to the HP Firebird and Maingear Pulse.
The starting price for the AVADirect GT3 gaming system is $948.82 for the AMD version, and $1,239.92 for the Intel-based model. Based on the art featured on AVADirect's Web page, at least, the company has also apparently addressed our chief complaint about the original GT3 case, swapping out the Miami Vice-blue lettering on the front for decidedly less-rad white.
Normally, when you're reading off specs for laptops, an Intel Core i7 quad-core processor isn't listed--for gaming laptops, desktop replacements, or otherwise--and with good reason. We've had a few quad-core systems in the past, like the Toshiba Qosmio X305, but those Q9000 CPUs were made for these notebooks. So, what do you get when you cram a desktop processor into a notebook? A beast.
AVADirect will be the first reseller in the U.S. to offer a notebook using the Intel Core i7 quad-core desktop processor. The Clevo D900F 17-inch gaming notebook can pack up to 12GB of DDR3, 1.5TB (500GB times three) of storage with RAID support, Nvidia GTX 280M graphics with 1GB GDDR3, and a 12-cell battery.
(Credit:
AVADirect)
Unfortunately, the spec sheet doesn't say how long you can expect that 12-cell battery to last when you're running this thing. Suffice it to say you'll be plugged in most, if not all, of the time. And at 11.9 pounds of hardware meat--excluding adapter plug--I don't think carrying it around on a regular basis is going to enter the mind, so it works out. If nothing else, at least this will be the most compact Core i7 box on the market.
The D900F is not an entirely new design. It was based on an older model known as the D901C. This model also used a desktop processor and desktop components, but was based on the aging Core 2 technology.
AVADirect started taking preorders as of last week and plans to ship out the notebooks to expecting customers the first week in July. Starting price for the notebook is currently $2,538, with the sky being the limit depending on how high you configure it.
We posted a review of an AVADirect Custom Gaming PC yesterday afternoon. With one of the single largest, yet stable, CPU overclocks we've ever seen, this expertly build, attractive, and cost-competitive gaming desktop impressed us enough to earn an Editor's Choice award. You can read the review here (video should post shortly).
AVADirect's Custom Gaming PC
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)As you might note from the lengthy service and support section in the review, AVADirect has something of an image problem online, in particular on the forums at enthusiast site HardOCP. We're not blind to the concerns raised on the HardForum, and we've read through almost all of them. On the flipside, we can't exactly use a few samples from the Web to judge a vendor's entire service and support operation.
We don't want to minimize the legitimate complaints some customers have with AVADirect. We know from experience the frustration of customer service failures. But we also can't ignore the many positive reviews of AVADirect systems on the HardForum, as well as on ResellerRatings.com.
We stand by our decision to award this system an Editors' Choice, but we suspect that might be unpopular with those who have strong feelings about AVADirect. A few folks over at the HardForum have already said as much. The only thing we can say is that the service and support subrating for desktops (in this case a 6), represents only 10 percent of a review score for a reason. We don't want to ignore customers' concerns about a vendor, but for the sake of consistency, fairness, and timeliness, we have to spend most of our energy on the product itself. In the case of this particular configuration from AVADirect, we came away impressed.
(Credit:
AVADirect)
If you've read our desktop reviews over the past few years, you may have noticed write-ups of a few desktops from AVADirect. This lesser-known PC vendor has impressed us with both the value and the build-quality of its systems, but we've been reluctant to recommend them to average PC buyers because its Web site was so daunting. A typical power-supply drop-down menu, for example, would list 40 or 50 different options. Enthusiasts might love that sort of thing (those not building their own PCs, at least), but even average PC gamers don't always want to deal with that much granularity while shopping for a PC.
As it has long promised, AVADirect has finally made its PCs easier to buy for those unfamiliar with CAS latency or without a favorite thermal paste. Click from its homepage to the Desktop Systems tab and you'll find a Pre-Built Gaming Systems section, currently populated by five different base models. Each of those offers some degree of customization, but system-defining features such as the chassis and the motherboard are locked in. The memory and hard drive options have also been thoroughly purged to present customers with only a few reasonable choices.
We like choice, don't get us wrong, and AVADirect still has a section with the full range of customization it offered previously. We're just glad to see AVADirect make it easier for less confident buyers to order one of its competent, aggressively-priced desktops.
Why, yes. Double down, even. If not for the intense feelings I had for Intellivision (you never forget your first), I may have ended up a PC gamer instead of strictly a console guy.
(Credit: Digital Press)Let me start with a disclaimer: I'm a console gamer. Always have been, since my friend down the street in Minneapolis got an Atari 2600 in 1979, and I trumped him a year later with Mattel's Intellivision. (Along with George Plimpton, we found Intellivision's Major League Baseball to be clearly superior to Atari's Home Run baseball. Intellivision baseball, hockey, and skiing were pretty much all I cared about in 1980.) Like Larry King with wives, there's long list of consoles that I traded in for newer models over the years: Intellivision to Intellivision 2, to NES, to Sega Genesis, to PlayStation, to Xbox, to Xbox 360. As I moved from console to console, I never did find the need to plunk down for a gaming PC, and thankfully any old PC can run an Intellivision emulator.
If I were a PC gamer (and I happened across a pile of money), however, there are five systems that would definitely be on my list. Since May, we've reviewed one gaming PC each month that has really impressed us. These five desktops are all overclocked, and all but the AVADirect system feature a quad-core processor, so you know your investment--prices of our review units range from $3,600 to nearly $6,600--is well equipped to stand the test of time. Three of the five earned an Editors' Choice, including the HP Blackbird 002, which is only the highest0rated desktop we've ever seen at CNET--at least since Rich Brown and I have been here. (The other two award-winners came from Maingear and Velocity Micro.)
For a specs comparison, videos, and the reviews themselves, I've assembled this page for your viewing pleasure.
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