Digital Trends

AVA Direct Gaming PC Workstation

September 15th, 2008 | by Nick Mokey

Specs

Peeking under the hood on a $6,200 gaming machine is a lot like peeking into a box of the last six months of product announcements piled into one place. Everything is top of the line. Our machine came equipped with:

• Dual Intel Xeon X5450 Quad-Core processors clocked at 3.0GHz
• 16GB Kingston PC2-5300 RAM
• GeForce GTX 280 Graphics Card with 1GB DDR3 RAM
• Triple 1TB Seagate Barracuda SAS 7200RPM Drives
• LG 6x Blu-ray Burner
• Silverstone Sugo SG04B-H Mid-Tower Case, mATX
• Silverstone Strider ST1000 Modular Power Supply

Aesthetics

Call it overstatement, but Silverstone’s Sugo case may be one of the most beautiful and understated desktop cases we’ve ever laid eyes on. The anodized black exterior didn’t call out for attention or attract fingerprints like glossy black cases, and all of the mating panels fit together tightly. Even the side window, usually an obnoxious look-at-me feature, used a matte black grille to play down the glitz inside and act more as a functional cooling element. The billet aluminum carry handle up top not only felt solid enough to have been pulled off a Navy destroyer, and came in handy when lugging this heavy beast around.

Inside, the AVA build team did a top-notch job installing this system’s heavy load of hardware into a very tight case. Cables were tied together and neatly routed through the tiniest channels of the case as if they were custom cut and bent to fit there. Fasteners were snug, but not overtorqued, and we saw no signs of dings, scratches or other assembly mishaps. Overall a job well done by the assembly folks at AVA Direct.

Presentation

When buying a custom PC, you’ll need to keep in mind that you’re not going to get the same shrink-wrapped box and glossy manuals that you’ll pick up with a computer from a big box store. Every computer is a one off deal, and the packaging reflects that. All of our AVA Direct computer’s accessories were tightly packed into computer’s motherboard box, which shipped along with a binder full of discs and documentation as well. It’s the type of utilitarian approach a friend might take after selling you a home-built computer, but we expected slightly better when dropping $6K at a legitimate builder.

However, if you don’t place much emphasis on looks or organization, it works, and the included documentation was extremely thorough. You’ll find everything from benchmark scores for your machine to operating temperatures and the initials of the guy (or gal) who built it. This sort of paperwork definitely helps build up the impression that your machine was built with care, and it’s the “extra mile” that sets some boutique builders apart.

The inside of the AVA Direct gaming PC workstation