Boutique Graphics PCs Duke It Out

skywalker9952

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The ava direct system could have been upgraded to dual 880GTX SLI'd with a E6850 or Q6600 for $400 more. That configuration would have done much better in the gaming benchmarks. By not adding the second graphics card you are giving the digital storm a huge advantage in the high res benchmarks. Seemed like ava screwed up and should have sent you a much better system for around $400 more, or you should have asked for a better system. Oh and those 8800GTXs were the OCed ones from BFG 626/2000, almost the speeds of the ultra. Good article, but with the right configuration choices you can probably get within 10% of the $6k system by spending just a little over half pf that.
 

netsez

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Jun 16, 2006
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Any reason you didn't use 3dmark06? Now I can't compare these systems with reviews of other systems from other sites.
 

Crashman

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Graphics Guru Daren Polkowski believes there's something wrong with 3D Mark 06...perhaps it's perceived favoritism for a certain architecture...
 

camn

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Why on earth would you compare a $3000 machine to a $6000 machine?

Isn't that like comparing a $10k car to a $22k car? It is really no surprise that the more expensive machine performed better.

My ruling? This article was a Giant waste of bandwidth, and tarnishes Toms rep as 'worth reading'.

c
 

bornking

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Be nice camn, the reason for the comparison is to ultimately show performance as a function of value. Of course performance as a function of price as you stated is obvious. That is not the point. Perhaps they did not make it clear enough, but that is not worth getting upset about. A polite PM is all it takes mate.
 

donkeypunch

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I like the review but its not a true apples to apples comparison. I mean, the paint job alone on the Digital Storm setup really jacks up the price which has absolutely no performance gain. The comparison should have been done with no cosmetic enhancements that makes the price go up. Even then, by using the very best components there is a huge price premium for a small gain in performance. (Then again, look at the 8800GT vrs. the GTX-what a bargain!) Even that aside, I still think comparing value vrs performance is good, but not when including options like a custom paint job that has no performance impact whatsoever but pushes the price way up.
 

demosale

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Concerning AVA Direct:

Poor, lazy and lacking in customer service and technical expertise.

Spoke with a salesman named Misha who claimed to be CEO of the company and one of 4 owners. First red flag: Why is the CEO working in the capacity of a Salesman?? What kind of an operation is this? I enquired with Misha about a high-end gaming rig. Misha kept pushing me back to the site to configure my builds; upon doing so, I asked Misha via email for input regarding cost savings tweaks to the 2 system builds I had configured, at his request, and for obvious reasons. I then went back & forth via email with him responding to irrelevant questions designed to hide his lacking of technological prowess and he continued to push me back to the site with no answers to my questions. He finally recommended an SLI, DDR2, Q6850 over a single video card, DDR3, Q9650 solution. When I asked him to explain why, what the trade offs were etc., he got extremely hostile and started shouting out me and then closed with “as CEO, I’m going to refuse your business” and hung up on me. Before he hung up on me, I told him how shocked I was at how he was conducting himself and that I was going to post my experience with him all over the net. It was at this point that he said he could care-a-less and hung up. There’s one more happenstance I’d like to point out that is indicative of this individual's incompetence and lack of foresight. When I first spoke to him, I shared with him how I had come to be in contact with his company by way of a negative posting I read herein concerning one of his competitors. You should also know that based on pas experiences other computer manufacturers' tech support, I called AVA's tech support to see what they were like and found that their hours were only 8 am to 5pm EST M-F. What a joke.
 

donkeypunch

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Thats what I did, but then that takes a big chunk away from the price, which is the entire point of the article. I just don't know why toms hardware would order a computer with cosmetic enhancements when comparing price/performance. Makes no sense.

I found many articles here that are pretty biased, vary way off from the majority of other review sites when reviewing hardware, but I like the girl that reviews stuff here dressed in an elf costume..so I come back for that! :hello:
 

Crashman

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I think you're fairly biased because you ignored the fact that Tom's Hardware takes whatever system the company decides to send.
 

donkeypunch

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Did TomsHardware tell the companies what the systems were being used for? Did TH explain that these systems were going to be compared based on price? If they had known I honestly cant see why DS would send the system they did.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy reading the article, I really did. I was interested in both companies at the time. I just think its hard to compare two machines based on price/performance when you include cosmetic enhancements, custom water cooling, etc that drastically increase the price but have little to no performance benefits. It would have been much better if it were based on hardware alone, IMO.
 

donkeypunch

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Anytime you compare top of the line parts to middle of the road parts theres going to be a huge price premium, especially when adding in custom paint jobs, interior lighting, and custom water cooling setups.

Even all that aside-theres accurate looking numbers and percentages being thrown around in the article comparing price/performance. Theres even all those colorful charts! Seems all articulate and such, but now $300 is just $300 which effects about every charts percentages, but no biggie.

And I'm still curious whether Digital Storm knew that system was going to be compared to a middle of the road system rather than just reviewed on its own? I only ask because I can't see why a company would send a system with all the custom bells and whistles to be compared against a middle of the road system knowing full well the price will far exceed performance gains.

 

Crashman

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Former Staff
Let me quote the article:

"The lower-cost AVA Direct system leads the Digital Storm Twister Extreme by 28% in overall value, so it's a better deal for anyone who fits within its budget range. The Twister Extreme will still be worth the added expense to high-budget gamers, simply because of its capabilities at high resolutions."

It looks like the more expensive system got a fair shake. You have to remember that "every" review will compare one thing to another, so they just picked the closest two systems they had.
 

donkeypunch

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I don't think either company was made to look any better or worse, I was just confused on how the systems were chosen and why cosmetic parts were included. I was actually in the process of trying a boutique builder for the first time when this article came out and was considering both companies. I originally thought by the title "Boutique Graphics PCs Duke It Out" that it would be a direct comparison to each other, not to the industry as a whole as I later found out after reading the article in its entirety. In any case, thanks for the replies and clearing things up for me. :sol: