New rig has arrived - Review & Pics

Well, my new DS Gaming Rig finally arrived today.  The wait has been torture but well worth it.  I have been itching for a new gaming PC for the past few months now and like always started to do my research.  My current PC was from Overdrive PC and it is 3 years old.  They are a small boutique builder out of Georgia that was acquired by Velocity Micro a year or two ago.  The two guys I dealt with from OPC (Mario & Aaron) are no longer there and that played a part into my decision to make a new purchase instead of sending it back to them for upgrades.  MY OPC has been a fantastic machine.  My PC before that was an Alienware.  I don’t have anything bad to say about either company as my experiences with both of them were excellent. 

So after researching ********, Velocity Micro, Digital Storm, Falcon NW, and a couple of others,  it was narrowed down to ******** and DS.  I enjoyed my experience with OPC and Alienware when they were considered smaller boutique builders and wanted to purchase from the same type of company.   Anyway, I finally made the decision to purchase from DS.  The combination of performance, customer service, and price won out in the end.  I felt as if I was getting more system for the same amount of money with DS.  Throw in the promo and an active community forum and I knew I made the right choice.

The new DS rig will be used for mostly gaming on a 1920 x 1200 monitor with an upgrade to larger monitor in the future.  I lurked in the DS forums for quite some time reading all the different configuration threads.  I only wanted to spend around $2800 to $3000.  I knew for this price I could get a top notch gaming rig from DS.

I really liked the colors DS posted of the Tesla system with yellow hose clamps and green cooling liquid.  I asked Sarah if that could be done for my rig and she said yes.   I wanted to do something a little different than just red.  I was hoping the liquid was going to be more yellowish like the Tesla pics but I still like it. 

 Digital Storm Desktop 133340 Quantity: 1 $3,001.00

 PROMOTIONAL LIMITED TIME BONUS DISCOUNT: $300 Quantity: 1 ($300.00)

 

System Configuration:

Chassis Model: Cooler Master HAF 932

Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish

Interior Finish: - Standard Factory

Finish Trim Accents: Paint Screws and Hose Clamps – I ASKED FOR YELLOW

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz (Quad Core)

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

System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1333MHz Digital Storm Certified by mushkin enhanced (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)

Power Supply: 1000W Corsair HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition)

Card Reader: - No Thanks

Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)

Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks

Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)

Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks

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

Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks

Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)

Video Card(s): 2x SLI Dual (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 896MB (Includes PhysX Technology)

Add-on Card: - No Thanks

Sound Card: Razer Barracuda AC-1 (Recommended)

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

Liquid Color: UV Green: High Glowing Non-conductive Fluid (Requires H20: Stage 3 & UV Lighting)

Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans

Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (UV) (Creates Glowing Effect For H20: Stage 3 UV Fluid)

Enhancements: - No Thanks

Chassis Mods: - No Thanks

CPU Boost: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Requires Air Cooling Upgrade)

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

Memory Boost: Memory Fan Kit Only (Does not include memory overclocking service)

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

Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista 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

 

Sub-Total: $2,701.00

Tax: $0.00

S&H: Ground $0.00

Grand Total: $2,701.00

 

Ordering

 

Once I decide on the config, I called Sarah.  She approved and I placed my order and readied myself for the torture of waiting.  She even threw in a free copy of Far Cry 2 and a T-shirt.  I also called Sarah several times after the order was placed due to having some second thoughts about a few options and she eased my worries…LOL.

 

Sarah was very cool and patient through the whole thing and helped me get the shipping upgrade the day it shipped.

 

Processing

Ordered 6/19

Stage 1 – 6/19

Stage 2 – 6/22

Stage 3 – 6/22

Stage 4 – 6/25

Stage 5 – 6/25

Stage 6 – 6/30

Stage 7 – 7/1   SHIPPED!!!

 

Order was shipped 9 business days from the date I placed it. Very impressive!

 
Well, that is it for now. The rig just arrived and the only thing I had time to do was unpack it and take some pictures before I had to go back to the office.  I will get it up and running tonight.  Enjoy the first round of pics.  Rest of the pics can be seen here:

Edited by Alex - 04 Oct 2010 at 9:18pm

Wow very nice and it looks like it arrived in good shape you are lucky

very clean and beautiful now how about some pics with the lights off and the PC running

....I rather like your color scheme...something different...am envious--mine is only in stage 4    Enjoy...

thank you.   still getting it all set up though.   posted some new pics in original post.

Thanks for the nighttime/UV/lights-on pics...great job...  There's several of us out here waiting...and although looking isn't quite like having--it helps  Thanks for the public service  

williamsw2 ,

Great pictures and an excellent write up!  I hope that you are enjoying your new dream machine.  I love mine!!

very nice pics and I really dig the color scheme

william2 please go here and download real temp and then please run both HWMonitor and realtemp at the same time in the background and then play your games for an hour, then if you can please post a screenshot of both of them next to each other so we can see the numbers.

I'm trying to see if there is a big difference between HWMonitor and realtemp. thank you so much

I got to say your rig looks sweet

Edited by DST4ME - 05 Jul 2009 at 10:45pm

thanks man, lol that makes it even so far.

thanks man. i want to see pics of yours. i could have gone overboard but in the end decided i didn't want to spend more than 3k. i think i might send it back in at some point and upgrade to tri sli and dual loop cooling or the vid cards and a solid state drive   

pls post pics of yours.

on another note, alex or someone from DS answer a question for me. the liquid color in the picture of the tesla system, what color is it? when i change the liquid out one day can i get that color? thanks.

is it just regular green then?  I got UV green.  Maybe thats why its not yellowish in the light, more kelly green.  Still love it though.

nice review..

@williamsw2, that color is a yellowish green, and we can mix a solution for you.

@ Alex, I would like that very much.  How do I order it?

williamsw2 call them and request it.

Originally posted by titusmckieus williamsw2 and others where do you find that shortcut dock? that you have on your desktop. is that part of a theme?I have been seeing it on here and i really like that but cant seam to find it

Wow, i don't know what happened to my original post. I was editing the topic and something weird happened.