System Review: Digital Storm's Gaming Dominator

[The_Blood_Raven]

[citation][nom]septagent[/nom]@The_Blood_RavenI think you missed the introduction. A good majority of us would much rather provide a high end gaming machine to a friend WITHOUT having to provide the support for years. We have other jobs and plenty of things to do. In my case, the machines like this that i have tried to provide for friends were hundreds of miles away. When they have a major issue and lose a power supply or something, It's a pain to have to arrange a trip (or make them wait for a trip) up there to take care of it. It would be nice to be able to recommend a high end machine with full support and only a few hundred bucks more. Sounds selfish, but the amount of free service it would take for me to travel 150 miles to replace a power supply (or MOBO, or anything else) is worth much more than $400 you might save in parts. It would be worth it on just one trip, let alone 2 or 3 that might be necessary over the years. I think it's totally appropriate to recommend a vendor like this.[/citation]

Again I'm not disagreeing with the article, just stating that the price they listed for support is higher. If you want this kind of support than it is a great deal. But as I said in my first post, I don't understand the conclusion. You CAN build a similar or faster PC with different components, they based their $250 figure off of the retail price for the exact same parts, for less money than even that I configured a faster PC. I just feel they have a hole in their logic that makes the conclusion useless.

 

[blackened144]

[citation][nom]falchard[/nom]The thing I don't like about modern cases is all the mesh they use. How are you suppose to blow out heat when all the cold air is blowing out the case before it reaches the heat source? Also needlessly expensive case.[/citation]

Its called negative pressure. If the fans are pulling out air faster than the intake fans can push it in, the pressure will pull in air from the path of least resistance. Since the mesh provides almost no resistance, that pressure will pull the cold air in IN through the mesh, not push the cold air OUT of the case.

 

[ravenware]

[citation][nom]jcknouse[/nom]Nice looking box. Decent build. Great support. Poor price.Why poor price?.[/citation]

Are operating systems free everywhere else but back here in reality?

Anyway, you are missing the point, of course you can build a faster or more ideal rig for less....but guess what? That is not how you run a business for profit!

This system in particular (despite its absence of flubber) is a good deal when compared to offerings from Alienware or Falcon North West that can charge build premiums up to $1000 over build cost.

I don't always want to build someone a computer either, I would rather refer them to a prebuilt system and this is a good high-value, high-end system.

 

[anonymous x]

[citation][nom]jcknouse[/nom]Nice looking box. Decent build. Great support. Poor price.Why poor price?CoolerMaster HAF 922 Case $99.99Corsair 1000W PSU $239.99 + $20 MIRAsus Crosshair III Formula mobo/Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3-1600 combo $289.98Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon 4870 2GB card $199.992nd Sapphire Vapor-X 2GB card/2nd set Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3-1600 combo $299.98 + 15 MIRAMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz Quad-Core $199.99ZEROTherm Nirvana NV120 HSF $49.99 + $20 MIRKingston V-Series 128GB SSD $249.992 Seagate 7200.12 500GB drives $109.98Lite-On 8x BD-ROM drive w/Lightscribe $109.994 Scythe S-Flex 120mm case fans $55.96 (fully ventilate the case)Price w/shipping (not including MIRs): $1918.47So for $300 less, I can have the rig with SSD, more video RAM, faster disks in RAID, better gaming mobo, etc.Plus if I was budget conscious, I could easily drop the SSD, move to 4-500GB drives in RAID 0 for high performance, plus move to 2x4890s and save another $150 or more.Sure the i7 950 is gonna be a workhorse, but I think the increased RAM, video RAM, hard drive speed, as well as a mobo customized for gaming makes a better choice for gaming especially in the high end.Don't get me wrong. That system is great for someone who knows nothing about building a rig. But if my mom (who is in her 70s) wanted to play video games, I wouldn't recommend that machine. That's too much money to shovel out, even if you are getting great support. Great support doesn't last forever. Look at Gateway. I used to use them both consumer and GSA side. Were awesome. Now, Gateway is a mess.Lifetime warranties are great for memory from a major maker. But when it comes to a pre-built system of parts from 15 different manufacturers, I don't put too much stock in a company honoring "lifetime" anything.But if you were someone with no time and plenty of money, that rig would be good. I think your concluding assessment is that the price is "reasonable" holds under those conditions.Good article tho. Thanks very much.[/citation]
lol, if you're going to spec something as an alternative to a pre-built system, at least make it equivalent in performance or faster
The OC'd i7, triple channel memory, and gtx 295 will easily surpass your system, in everything but hard drive performance. And #2- OS? That costs money too, assuming you'll be gaming in windows. I can tell that you have never been the family tech support before.

 

[bmchan]

I bought a machine from these guys last month and have had a great experience. I live on the east coast and shipping was no problem. OS included with a Windows 7 upgrade and the warranty made it an easy decision for me. Watch the forum community for a while and you will get a good sense for who you are dealing with.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]septagent[/nom]@The_Blood_RavenI think you missed the introduction. A good majority of us would much rather provide a high end gaming machine to a friend WITHOUT having to provide the support for years. We have other jobs and plenty of things to do. In my case, the machines like this that i have tried to provide for friends were hundreds of miles away. When they have a major issue and lose a power supply or something, It's a pain to have to arrange a trip (or make them wait for a trip) up there to take care of it. It would be nice to be able to recommend a high end machine with full support and only a few hundred bucks more. Sounds selfish, but the amount of free service it would take for me to travel 150 miles to replace a power supply (or MOBO, or anything else) is worth much more than $400 you might save in parts. It would be worth it on just one trip, let alone 2 or 3 that might be necessary over the years. I think it's totally appropriate to recommend a vendor like this.[/citation]

It was $250 when the article was written

 

[Casper42]

I would love to see Digital Storm offer these same components (except the MB for obvious reasons) stuffed into a mATX Cube or Tower. With the price drop due to a cheaper Chassis it would get closer to a $1999 price tag.

Sure you are trading size for expandability, but I think alot of people who buy a boutique PC like this for gaming are also the ones who won't be going back in to add components over and over. Those kind of people usually build their own and don't need the Tech support.

 

[zuman001]

I find I'm kicking myself after reading this article and others about companys offering quality, hand built gaming systems for close to the cost of doing it yourself. By far the main benefit is peace of mind (technical support, warranty, and maybe most of all restore DVDs!) I spent roughly $1100 (less $30 in rebates) buying parts in March '09 (see list below) to build a new gaming rig. I had no trouble assembling the parts and getting the system up and running. However right of the bat I realized the plethora of bios options go beyond my skill level (specifically in Ai Tweaker menu). One simple example is when I enable the XMP memory profile (in Ai Tweaker:Ai Overclocker Tuner) the DRAM BUS voltage goes to 1.66v and displays a big warning that the processor can be damaged if DRAM voltage is set over 1.65v. Heck, it was set there automatically! I thought XMP memory and the Ai Tweaker menu was supposed to make this easy! I would have gladly paid extra $250 to know the system was configured properly and components were being utilized to thier fullest potential. For now I'm stuck running at default settings until I can understand all the how-to stuff. I'd recommend anyone to shop around at companies like Digital Storm if thinking of buying a PC for gaming.

ASUS P6T ($223)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 ($257)
Patriot Viper Series PC1600 (XMP) 6GB Triple pack DDR3 ($149)
EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 Superclocked edition (retail $129)
WD 1TB 32MB SATA hard drive WD10000LSRTL (retail $119)
Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX Power Supply (retail $135)
Windows Vista 64-bit (OEM)($119)
(resued my IDE CD/DVD drive, old Chieftec case, Samsung 206BW monitor, logitech 2.1 speakers, mouse and keyboard)

 

[Luscious]

This may be a completely stupid question, but I beg to know why is a system that uses 358W peak need a 750W power supply??? Even at 80% efficiency, a 500W PSU would have been plenty adequate. Am I missing something?

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]Luscious[/nom]This may be a completely stupid question, but I beg to know why is a system that uses 358W peak need a 750W power supply??? Even at 80% efficiency, a 500W PSU would have been plenty adequate. Am I missing something?[/citation]

Yeh, you're missing the marketing angle. 750W sounds awesome, no?

 

[Ixad]

I priced out the components, the exact components in this build at Newegg, at $1940. So the pricing on support is accurate, except...

The choice of a GTX295 makes no sense to me if you have an SLI enabled motherboard and a PSU with the correct connections to use a pair of GTX275 cards. Particularly as the power supply has no chance at powering a pair of GTX295's. That's a $100 savings for the same performance.

The processor selection is another build choice I question. The point of overclocking is to make something cheap run like a more expensive product, so the 920 seems like the more logical choice. That's another $300 saved.

Knock $400 off that $2233 price tag for marginal impact on the performance, and you start to approach a price point that I'd see as a value. I realize that's a little bit knitpicky, but it's also a price difference that represents almost %20 of the total build price.

Other than that, it's hard to fault the level of service offered, the free delievery, or the build quality at Digital Storm.

 

[ravenware]

[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]Yeh, you're missing the marketing angle. 750W sounds awesome, no?[/citation]
And it makes you sleep better at night

 

[Impulse Fire911]

Looks like a nice Pc but cmon you cant just put in shiny new graphix and and a good CPU you gotta ad some extras like some good audio card. and maybe a neon light in the shape of a giraffe. cmon seriosly

 

[jcknouse]

[citation][nom]anonymous x[/nom]lol, if you're going to spec something as an alternative to a pre-built system, at least make it equivalent in performance or faster The OC'd i7, triple channel memory, and gtx 295 will easily surpass your system, in everything but hard drive performance. And #2- OS? That costs money too, assuming you'll be gaming in windows. I can tell that you have never been the family tech support before.[/citation]

1) Overpaying for a 950 i7 CPU. In gaming, the 955 BE rig would perform just fine gaming at 3.6-3.8GHz OC. With the CPU price difference alone, I can 3x CF the cards to 4890s and blow away the 1x GTX 295. No CPU is gonna make up for increased GPU rendering capability.

2) For the same price (as I mentioned), I can put in 2x 4890 1GB and it is on the same performance par as the 1x GTX 295 1792MB in that example system.

3) 6GB DDR3 1333 8-8-8-19 vs 8GB DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24.

4) The use of an SSD would take away latencies that even the i7 975 couldn't compensate for using a single, multi-platter conventional drive.

5) The ASUS Crosshair III is a far superior gaming mobo, so that will outperform that pre-config system's mobo as well.

As for OS, I can get Windows XP x64 OEM full version shipped to me for $80 including shipping. That still isn't the budget killer.

If I wanted to go Linux, I could get Transgaming Cedega for $55 a year and still beat the price of Vista Ultimate over a 3 year timeframe.

As for not being family tech support, I've been the computer geek in my family all my life and built everything from sub-$500 web browsing systems to $2000+ gaming rigs, with everything ranging from parts scavenged to custom-built systems with top-end, name-branded parts.

My point was: I can built an on-par system for less, and a near-par system for quite a bit less.

As I said, the price of the computer is "reasonable" if you are a person who buys out-of-the-box and never builds your own and depends on someone to do upgrades for you...and you want a good gaming rig.

But, any system builder could easily top the performance of that rig at a lower price.

Didn't mean to make you think I was comparing apples to oranges. I was just showing that (for the tech savvy) apples to apples you can do better price wise, and for not much less performance you can save enough to put a down payment on a new car.

 

[ljport78]

I bought one of these machines (slightly older model) from Digital Storm at the begining of 2009 and am still very impressed. I also have recommended them to friends who have bought from them and also love thier computers. The size of the case turned me off at first but the first time I wanted to upgrade a hard drive in it and opened it up and saw how much room there was to work inside of the case and that the people from Digital Storm took the time to hide the cables... I totally changed my mind. The case may not be much to look at but it's a beast and it is the easiest case I have ever had to work with.

 

[ljport78]

[citation][nom]ljport78[/nom]I bought one of these machines (slightly older model) from Digital Storm at the begining of 2009 and am still very impressed.[/citation]

I forgot to mention I had it overclocked by Digital Storm and they were able to ver clock the Core I7 from 2.66 to 3.49. I had stability issues "once" when my room temperature was over 80 degrees and I was gaming.

They also sold it to me without Hard Drives and no Operating System by my request.

 

[jcknouse]

[citation][nom]ravenware[/nom]Are operating systems free everywhere else but back here in reality?Anyway, you are missing the point, of course you can build a faster or more ideal rig for less....but guess what? That is not how you run a business for profit!This system in particular (despite its absence of flubber) is a good deal when compared to offerings from Alienware or Falcon North West that can charge build premiums up to $1000 over build cost.I don't always want to build someone a computer either, I would rather refer them to a prebuilt system and this is a good high-value, high-end system.[/citation]

As I said, Win XP Pro x64 OEM Full = $80 shipped.

As for running a business for profit, I do computer consulting (PC repair/builds, network installs, home internet setups, etc) on the side and have never had an issue making money. I don't make a $300-500 profit on a gaming rig. I can make $100-200 on a box and do quite well for myself.

Of course, I don't have to pay ridiculous sums to company execs either.

As for Alienware and Falcon NW, those are the higher-priced vendors for buying pre-built systems. There are other dealers out there who offer gaming rigs at the same level for less money. Especially with Alienware, you're paying for a name...not some absolute in superior quality.

 

[blevsta]

One thing that's a little misleading is it's not just $300 for support. If you have a hardware failure you have to ship your whole system back. After the first 30 days, shipping is coming out of your pocket. Possibly both ways, although it's not specified on their support page. I know you'd have to pay to ship any component back for warranty support, but I'd rather pay shipping on a video card than on a 15 pound PC.

 

[ljport78]

[citation][nom]jcknouse[/nom]As I said, Win XP Pro x64 OEM Full = $80 shipped.As for running a business for profit, I do computer consulting (PC repair/builds, network installs, home internet setups, etc) on the side and have never had an issue making money. I don't make a $300-500 profit on a gaming rig. I can make $100-200 on a box and do quite well for myself.Of course, I don't have to pay ridiculous sums to company execs either. As for Alienware and Falcon NW, those are the higher-priced vendors for buying pre-built systems. There are other dealers out there who offer gaming rigs at the same level for less money. Especially with Alienware, you're paying for a name...not some absolute in superior quality.[/citation]Sounds to me like you are charging too little. (Market Value) = (what the customer is willing to pay). If you want to build 1 machine here and there for friends "on the side" and that’s all you want to do that is fine I am sure it is nice extra pocket change, However, in order to expand into a self sustaining company you would either need a large outside investment or start charging a lot more for your services.

Talking about doing something "on the side" is not equal to running a full time successful company with actual employees.

I think the time, effort, and recourses it takes to assemble, configure, and rigorously test a system is worth more than a couple hundred bucks.

I would do what you are doing for free for my friends and actually have fun doing it but becoming thier personal 24 hour tech support keeps me from doing that any more. That is why I point people to companies like this one.

 

[ravenware]

[citation][nom]jcknouse[/nom]As I said, Win XP Pro x64 OEM Full = $80 shipped.As for running a business for profit, I do computer consulting (PC repair/builds, network installs, home internet setups, etc) on the side and have never had an issue making money. I don't make a $300-500 profit on a gaming rig. I can make $100-200 on a box and do quite well for myself.Of course, I don't have to pay ridiculous sums to company execs either. As for Alienware and Falcon NW, those are the higher-priced vendors for buying pre-built systems. There are other dealers out there who offer gaming rigs at the same level for less money. Especially with Alienware, you're paying for a name...not some absolute in superior quality.[/citation]
I could see 150-200 for a side business thing but a company is going to have employees.

I do not see the operating system in your mock build.

 

[Guest]

Its a good system at a fair price but I would personally replace the GTX295 with two 275s for a lower price and better frame rates. Turning on SLI after driver updates isn't that hard. Then maybe put that extra money towards memory with slightly tighter timings

 

[jcknouse]

[citation][nom]ravenware[/nom]I could see 150-200 for a side business thing but a company is going to have employees.I do not see the operating system in your mock build.[/citation]

Not all companies have tons of employees. I'm not incorporated, yet I file taxes on my income, pay double FICA and medicare, etc.

Am I any less a business because I use my SSN rather than a seperate TIN?

I do both family computer work, neighbors computer work, and doing work for people that my family, neighbors, friends, and others I did work for refer me. Do I do it full time? No. Of course, most independent consultants don't work 50 hours a week 52 weeks a year unless they work for a huge firm. Keeping yourself in that much work is hard.

Just because you have a store front and a team of guys wearing shirts that are all the same color does not a business make.

As for the OS, add $80 to the total. Sub 2 4890 1GBs for the 2 4870 2GBs. The price is still over $200 cheaper.

As I said:

Good for non-system builder
Not for system builder

 

[jcknouse]

[citation][nom]ljport78[/nom]Sounds to me like you are charging too little. (Market Value) = (what the customer is willing to pay). If you want to build 1 machine here and there for friends "on the side" and that’s all you want to do that is fine I am sure it is nice extra pocket change, However, in order to expand into a self sustaining company you would either need a large outside investment or start charging a lot more for your services.Talking about doing something "on the side" is not equal to running a full time successful company with actual employees.I think the time, effort, and recourses it takes to assemble, configure, and rigorously test a system is worth more than a couple hundred bucks.I would do what you are doing for free for my friends and actually have fun doing it but becoming thier personal 24 hour tech support keeps me from doing that any more. That is why I point people to companies like this one.[/citation]

Actually, my market rate is right on. Why? Because I live in Florida. We have one of the worst economies in the country. Plus, the majority of the populous is retired here so they are on limited incomes.

My rate of $100-200 profit on a machine is right on. 20-45 mins to build, 15-35 mins OS install, maybe another 10 loading drivers if needed, and automated burn-in tests (which means I don't sit and watch the screen for 48 hours). So for an hour and a half of actual work, I get $100-200. That's pretty good pay, if you ask me...$65-130 an hour is above the normal bench fee around here.

And as I said before to ravenware, having tons of employees doesn't make a company. And, you don't have to be a "company" or "corporation" to be a "business".

As for being expanding, I don't see how most businesses expanded the past 24 months with the economy in the tank. In fact, I know 3 local computer shops who have closed their storefront because of the economy. I'm still doing work out of my home. They're not doing business out of their store. So, who has been the most successful business?

And also as I noted, I've not only done work for family and friends, but also liquor stores, doctors' offices, etc. I'm not just a "shade-tree mechanic" type geek. I've been building, upgrading, and fixing PCs since the 1980s when PC 80286-12 Turbo ATs were the fashion.

Anyways, it seems that some think the only way to succeed in the PC business is to have a team of employees, HR department, budget department, and wear a suit to client meetings.

That might work good for Miami or New York or Los Angeles. But, I do pretty well making 5 figures a year in what you would call "side work". It might not be success to you, but I'll retire before I'm 55.

 

[jcknouse]

BTW, just a note:

It's a nice rig. But if you're a system builder yourself, you could take the difference in buying from them and building yourself and get:

- A 64GB SSD
- A Velociraptor 300GB
- A 3rd Crossfire 4890 1GB video card
etc

I'm sure they are a great company, especially if Tom's says so. It's why I've referred to this site, and pointed co-workers here for information for years.

I'm sure most people who aren't techies or just don't wanna be bothered with building would love to have that rig.

 

[rockstone1]

My computer:

Phenom II 940, GTX 260, 4GB of DDR2 800 Ram, M3A78 Motherboard, with a Lexa Blackline, when cannibalizing the DVD Drive, cost me $800. Dell wanted $1500 for a weaker system.

And, my system is overclocked, my RAM is set to DDR2 1000, and my CPU is @ 3.5 Ghz.