Experience with Performance Personal Computers?

[minibyte]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has had experience with buying from a company called, "Performance Personal Computers?" (http://www.performancepc.net/) They're over in Geneva, Illinois.

In a nutshell, I'm looking for a computer that can handle Maya, 3DMax, AFX..pretty much a high-performance workstation for a 3D animator.

I know the common advice around here is to go build your own system, which is really tempting and seems fun in my head until things don't work, and I'm sitting in front of a table with broken Wall-e parts. So I'm staying on the safe side, and looking into custom builders.

I'm out here in the Midwest so the company above looks like a good shot and probably just a shorter drive as oppose to shipping things back and forth to the West or East coast in case of any mishaps...and from the looks of it, things can go awry easily during the shipment.

Thanks for your help, and Happy Holidays.

 

[hillmanant]

Hello MiniByte

I'm going to tell you what you already know, build your own. I'm a heavy equipment operator, I run a bulldozer(not the computer kind) and I built my own, I mean come on I'm a ditch digger and I built one with no problems, don't be scared, it's Lego's for adults! Literally! I had my doubts about building my own but did allot of research, Mainly here on Tom's and if you want a rig for what YOU need,Maya,3D Max, 3D animator, build your own. I like you looked into the prebuilt sites, the custom gaming pc sites(Alienware, Cyberpowerpc,iBUYPOWER), and all I found in my aimless reseaching is that they fill them with all the parts everyone wants to hear, i7 processor( this is a big one right now), 6950 or gf 580 grafix, what they don't tell you and don't advertize is that the motherboard that this tremendos processor or GPU or softaware is on is junk, that they come pre-loaded with a bunch of bloat ware(worthless software that slows down your system, or simply takes up room on the HDD's that are too small to begin with), or that the PSU is stressed to the max to mass produce at a cheaper price(so if you add another video card in SLI/Crossfire or HDD you will also need a bigger PSU), or simply it is exactly what you want at twice what it would cost you to build it yourself. Like you I've read this here on Tom's or other forums many times and still thought man this stuff is way beyond me, check this video out, this is what got me to build because if this moron can build a computer "A caveman could do it"(pun intended).

Builder Video(I make fun but it's what got me to build and I'm so glad i did.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUY0tP5jYIo

I would suggest to you to fill out the Tom's form in the New Build section, expectations, price range, programs being run, preferred parts and such and see what they come up with, converse, haggle, fine tune, and use Tom's, I did and I LOVE my system. Worst comes to worst and you have problems ask on here and someone will have an answer, someone always has an answer.

Just my 2 cents do with it what you will.

 

[jsrudd]

I second hillmanant sentiments. Building is really easy. The place that your most likely to run into problems is selecting incompatible parts. As long as you post on the boards this shouldn't be a problem.

Nevertheless, if this is for a business purpose (which it seems like it is) your probably better off buying a prebuilt system with good support. That way, if something goes wrong, you don't have to worry about it and can concentrate on work rather than being your own personal IT guy.

Looking at the website for this company, I'm not sure they have what you need for Maya, etc. You should really get an AMD FirePro 3D or Nvidia Quadro FX and all of these computers seem to run consumer graphics cards (Radeon HD and Geforce). It does, however, seem that they are using quality parts (including the powersupply and the motherboard) so if you're alright with consumer grade equipment then this company might not be a bad idea.

 

[BigCTM]

This is truly a top notch PC company. They will go out of their way to make things right and will customize a system as you want it. I just ordered a PC from them last week and they literally built it for 200.00 less than the parts would have cost me at newegg, even with all the rebates from newegg. The 10% off they are running helped with the price for sure.

I highly recommend them. One of the best kept secrets on the web...I agree - their website needs help. Call them though and they will bend over backwards to make you a system and not try to rip you off in the meantime.

 

[minibyte]

Thanks for your feedback, everybody . I will definitely check out the video link that Hillmant included, and call up Performance Personal Computers to see what they say. After that, I will make a final decision of what to do next.