Pick Your Own Parts...And Have Someone Else Build For You
Wouldn’t it be great if you could build your own PC with a few clicks of your mouse, with near-perfect precision? Tom’s Hardware's editorial team, made up of enthusiasts, spends most of its time writing stories for the do-it-yourself power user crowd. Sometimes we forget that a great many of our readers want to pick the parts for their next machine, but don't necessarily have the time or will to piece everything together. Shoot, I even know a professional IT guy who accidentally messes up several systems a month as a result of Intel's delicate LGA interface.
If you're looking for customization without the challenge, risk, or inconvenience of setting everything up on your own, than a boutique builder is probably your best bet. They're the folks who apply skilled hands to one-off configurations. And among those companies, AVADirect offers a vast array of top-end hardware and an extremely talented staff. But the company decided to go even further to prove that its custom-built machines could challenge both the quality and the value of our own efforts.
So confident is AVADirect in its quality and value that it even applied a chrome-like finish to the chassis holding the system we're reviewing today—that's a $99 AVADirect-exclusive option that doesn’t even show up in performance-to-price calculations—in addition to providing three years of parts and labor coverage and lifetime technical support.
| AVADirect (Custom Order) Mini "Cube" Gaming PC | |
|---|---|
| Configurable Components | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4770K (Haswell): 3.5 to 3.9 GHz, Four Cores, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache |
| DRAM | Kingston KHX16C9T3K2/16X, DDR3-1600 C9, 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) |
| Graphics | Asus GTX780-DC2OC-3GD5, GeForce GTX 780 3 GB GDDR5 |
| System Drive | 2 x Kingston HyperX 3K 120 GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD, RAID 0* |
| Storage Drive | Western Digital Black WD2002FAEX 2 TB, 7200 RPM Hard Drive* |
| Optical Drive | LG BH16NS40 Black 16x/16x/48x BD/DVD/CD Burner |
| Motherboard | MSI Z87I, LGA 1150, Z87 Express, mini-ITX with Wi-Fi |
| Chassis | Lian Li PC-Q28B mini-ITX Tower |
| Custom Finish | Custom "brushed metal" vinyl wrap |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Seidon 120M closed-loop cooler* |
| Power Supply | Seasonic SS-760XP2 80 PLUS Platinum Full-Modular 760 W |
| Chassis Features | |
| Expansion Slots | Two |
| Internal Bays | 4 x 3.5" / 2 x 2.5" Trays (Shared) |
| Power Bay | PS/2, Top Mounted on Rear Panel |
| External Bay | 1 x 5.25" |
| Front Panel I/O | 2 x USB 3.0, Headphone, Microphone, all on right-front edge |
| Fans | 1 x 140 mm Intake (front), 1 x 120 mm Exhaust (top) |
| Motherboard Features | |
| External Peripheral | 1 x PS/2, 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, |
| External Audio | 6 x Analog, Digital Optical |
| External Video | HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI-I |
| Internal Ports | 4 x SATA 6Gb/s, 2 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0 |
| Internal Slots | 1 x PCIe x16, 1 x mini-PCIe (Filled) |
| Maximum Memory | 2 x DDR3-800 to DDR3-2933 (all standard capacities) |
| Gigabit Ethernet | Dual Realtek RTL8111G PCIe, with teaming |
| Wireless Network | Intel 2230 PCIe 802.11n Single-Band, 300 Mb/s, + Bluetooth |
| Audio Controller | Realtek ALC892 DAC, 7.1+ 2 channels rear/front audio |
| Other Features | |
| Dimensions | 12.1" (H), 8.9" (W), 14.1" (D), 21.2 Pounds |
| Warranty | Three Years Limited Parts/Labor |
| Software | Windows 7 Home Premium, CyberLink Media Suite 10 |
| Price | $2470 |
| *Call AVADirect for availability |
The PC we received was extra-custom, sporting three internal drives. That's notable, since AVADirect's online configuration tool only lets you pick two; you need to call in to add the third. At first, that 2 TB Western Digital Black repository didn't even appear on our parts list. Including it plus the two SSDs is what got us up to $2470. But we needed all of that hardware to make this setup comparable with the two machines we're using as competition today.
We also had to calculate the price using a different cooler of similar value, since the Seidon 120M in our sample wasn't yet available through AVADirect's online configurator. We used the slightly-more-expensive Noctua NH-L12, so the price of this specific configuration could drop a bit in your own shopping cart. Again, though, both configuration exceptions can be solved by calling AVADirect and ordering that way.
