Halfway around the world review

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   So here is my review of my Digital Storm experience. A quick
side note, anyone who lives overseas or like myself is in the military
stationed overseas that is thinking about ordering from DS, I recommend this
review to you.

 First off, I ordered my system on October 19^th.
The sales rep I spoke to, James, was very helpful and insightful on my ordering
experience. I am not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to computer
hardware, so he gave me a bunch of recommendations, a handful of which actually
saved me some money. So with that money he saved me I put it into some extra
backup HDD capacity. 

 Over the next few weeks I was updated via e-mail of each
stage my system had completed and also if there were any problems. I expected
my order to be finished a lot faster than it was, but in retrospect, I placed
my order during the holidays which I imagine is a busy time for them. Any
questions I had I always had a response within 24 hours. Now only 2 problems
arose during the build process of my system. The first being very minor was
that the RAM that I requested, was not available. The Corsair Dominator. They
recommend the mushkin and that was not a problem. The second problem, which was
a big one, was that they couldn’t ship the system to me.

 I am stationed in Germany
and have an APO mailing address. The max
weight for any shipment going to an APO is 70
lbs. I hadn’t even considered this when I placed my order. So if you have an APO address, keep this in mind when you’re building a
system. DS said my system weighed in at a whopping 93 lbs. So as you can
imagine, I was quite heart broken when I learned this, fearing I would have to
cancel my order all together. Thankfully, that didn’t have to happen. DS came
up with a solution to get me my system. They took the 2 graphics cards, the 4
HDD’s, the front and both side panels to the chassis, and the box of extra
wires and components as well as the binder, and packed it up separately in a
second box. So they took the price I paid for the crate, and applied it to the
shipping cost of the second box. So I was extremely happy with this. Both boxes
shipped out on the 10^th of December.

 Received Box #2
on the December 28^th, which contained the hard drives, Graphics
cards, binder, side and front panels, and extra accessories.I was amazed that
this box made it from California to Germany in
pristine condition. Finally, on January 14^th, my other box arrived,
which contained the rest of my rig. Also in excellent condition. So after
unpacking it, and reinstalling the parts from the other box, I cranked it up,
and it has performed above and beyond my expectations.

Here are the specs for my system:

 Chassis Model: Digital Storm
HailStorm

Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish

Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish

Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish

Processor: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 975 3.33GHz (Quad Core) (Extreme
Performance)

Motherboard: EVGA X58 Classified 3X SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports Triple
SLI or CrossFire)

System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1866MHz Corsair Dominator DHX (High-Performance)

Power Supply: 1250W Enermax Galaxy EVO (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
(Recommended)

Card Reader: Internal Digital Media Card Reader (Black)

Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (120GB Solid State (By: OCZ) Vertex
Series (Model: OCZSSD2-1VTX120G)

Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks

Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 2x (300GB Western Digital VelociRaptor (10K
RPM) (16MB Cache) (Extreme Speed)

Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: 2x (2TB Western Digital (7200 RPM) (64MB Cache)
(SATA) (Extreme Speed WD2001FASS 2TB)

Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x)

Optical Drive 2: Blu-Ray Writer/Reader (Burn Blu-Ray discs and play them)

Internet Access: Linksys Wireless-N 300Mbps (Supports 802.11n/g/b)

Video Card(s): 2x SLI Quad (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1.792GB) (Includes PhysX
Technology)

Add-on Card: - No Thanks

Sound Card: Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion (Includes Front I/O)
(PCI-Express Slot Based)

Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 3: High-Performance Liquid Chilled FrostBite System
For CPU

Liquid Color: Blue: Non-conductive High-Performance Fluid (Requires H20: Stage
3 Cooling Package)

Chassis Airflow: Upgrade Chassis With LED Performance Fans (Blue) (Up to 6
Fans)

Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Blue)

Enhancements: LCD NZXT Sentry LX Temperature Display & Fan Controller
(Requires Chassis Airflow Upgrade)

Chassis Mods: - No Thanks

CPU Boost: Stage 2: Overclock the processor between 4.0GHz to 4.2GHz (Requires
H20 Cooling Upgrade)

Graphics Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)

Memory Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory

Windows Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating
system

Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) 

Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)

Virus Protection: - No Thanks

Office: - No Thanks

Benchmarking: - No Thanks

Pre-Install Game: - No Thanks

LCD Display: - No Thanks

Surge Shield: - No Thanks

Speakers: - No Thanks

Keyboard: - No Thanks

Mouse: - No Thanks

External Storage: - No Thanks

Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks

Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-10 Business Days After Order Is
Successfully Processed

Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty 141816 – 

PROMOTIONAL LIMITED TIME
BONUS DISCOUNT: $500 

1 MISC Ek block for X58
CLASSIFIED By: James 10/16/2009 

1 MISC 360 Radiator By: James
10/16/2009

 Here are the contents of box #1

Here are the contents of Box #2
After I reinstalled the hardware and cranked it up...

Haven't really had time to benchmark anything yet, but I'll post as soon as I do.

In the end, if you find yourself in a similar situation as myself, and you can handle a lengthy wait (which is really because of the Military Postal System), than I absolutely recommend giving DS a shot. I want to thank DS again for this monster and for quickly reaching a solution to get this very heavy system to me, on the other side of the ocean.