Digital Trends

AVA Direct Gaming PC Workstation

September 15th, 2008 | by Nick Mokey

Price

We take price into consideration on every product we review, but a system with a price tag over $6,000 warrants some extra discussion of that all-important factor. While it’s difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison when you’re dealing with a completely custom-built machine, in general we found AVA Direct to be making fairly reasonable markups on the hardware for its machines. The 1TB Seagate Barracuda drives in our system, for instance, runs between $150 and $170 from retailers, while AVA Direct charges $212 to add one to a SATA array. Adding a Razer Lycosa keyboard – that will cost you $80 on your own, or $86 from AVA. Besides the convenience of buying everything assembled and running properly, these mark-ups also get you a three-year limited parts and labor warranty. Other boutique builders, including Alienware and Falcon Northwest (other than its flagship system), include only a one-year warranty. Make no mistake – custom gaming rigs don’t come cheap. But if you’re willing to spend the money, AVA Direct provides respectable bang for the buck. 

That said, we believe the dollars on this particular rig probably could have been better spent on an SLI video card setup, or saved by skipping the outrageous levels of RAM and storage. But that’s a matter of buyer preference, and with AVA’s quite comprehensive selection of hardware and different system setups, you can easily tailor one to your budget. The most basic form of the system we ordered, including dual Xeon processors and a GeForce 8500GT, can be had for $1,452.36.

Conclusion

For the price, we probably wouldn’t recommend buying the exact outfit we reviewed here; It was solid, but we’re convinced similar results could be achieved on a lower budget using some different hardware choices. However, the overall fit, finish, and performance of this machine left us hankering for more from the modest Ohio-based builder. We would certainly make Ava Direct one of the first stops on your list when shopping for a custom-built gaming PC.

Pros:

• Nearly unstoppable gaming performance
• Clean, functional Windows install
• Quality games included
• Superb assembly workmanship

Cons:

• Amateurish packaging/presentation
• Price (as equipped)
• Slow boot time