My New Apollo Unboxing... Finally!

After several long weeks of anticipation, and a few hiccups along the way, I'm finally up and running with my new Apollo rig.

I placed the order over Labor Day weekend, it arrived as scheduled, about 15 business days later. Everything at first glance appeared to be okay, until I fired it up. Booted to BIOS screen. Turns out some cables were unplugged from the motherboard and the SSD, probably happened in shipping. But once I was able to boot to Windows, I realized the graphics card wasn't working... damaged from shipping probably.

It was a big letdown, but I have to say, Digital Storm made it right. They returned my calls and emails reasonably, and Mike with the tech dept. shipped me a replacement card, and picked up the shipping costs. The original card was an EVGA, and it was replaced with an Asus Turbo. To be honest, I'm glad, not only do I love Asus products, the white plastic cover on the card matches my tower so much better, and looks great under the blue LEDs.

So last night I finally got this bad boy fired up properly, and wow! This thing flies. It's easily the biggest, baddest rig I've ever owned, although I'm sure it pales in comparison to some of the rigs you guys have.

So, thank you to Digital Storm, for not only building an amazing machine, with lots of attention to detail, but making things right when it didn't arrive in working order. And it's a small thing, but the fact that the girl who answers the phones there apologized immediately that something was not right, really goes a long way in customer service these days.

Here are the pics and specs!!



















And now, after getting the replacement graphics card, finally good to go!





Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller ­ Digital Storm Apollo
Exterior Finish: ­ Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: ­ Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 6700K 4.0GHz (Codename Skylake) (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING (Intel Z170 Chipset)
System Memory: 16GB DDR4 2800MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series
Power Supply: 750W EVGA SuperNOVA (750 B1)
Expansion Bay: ­ No Thanks
Optical Drive: DVD­R/RW/CD­R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD­Writer 48x)
Storage Set 1: 1x SSD (500GB Samsung 850 EVO)
Storage Set 2: 1x Storage (2TB Western Digital ­ Black Edition)
Storage Set 3: ­ No Thanks
RAID Config: ­ No Thanks
RAID Card: ­ No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High­Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Graphics Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB (Includes PhysX)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
HPC Processor: ­ No Thanks
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Digital Storm Vortex 120mm Radiator Liquid CPU Cooler (High­Performance Edition)
H20 Tube Color: ­ Not Applicable, I do not have a custom HydroLux liquid cooling system selected
Chassis Fans: Upgrade Chassis With LED Performance Fans (Blue) (Up to 6 Fans)
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Blue)
Airflow Control: ­ No Thanks
Chassis Mods: ­ No Thanks
Noise Reduction: ­ No Thanks
LaserMark: ­ No Thanks
CPU Boost: Standard Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Automatic Overclocking
Graphics Boost: ­ No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Memory Boost: ­ No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
OS Boost: ­ No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Home (64­Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows CD)
Virus Protection: FREE: McAfee AntiVirus Plus (1 Year Service Activation Card) (Not Pre­installed) ($35 Value)
Office: ­ No Thanks
Game: ­ No Thanks
Display: ­ No Thanks
Surge Shield: ­ No Thanks
Speakers: ­ No Thanks
Keyboard: ­ No Thanks
Mouse: ­ No Thanks
NVIDIA SHIELD: ­ No Thanks
Branded Gear: ­ No Thanks
Priority Build: ­ No Thanks, Ship Within 10­15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life­time Expert Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

Edited by flamchop - 09 Oct 2015 at 5:53pm

grats, enjoy your system!

Wow. Really nice images and system. Enjoy it.

While it is never good to receive expensive things broken in transit and expecting lip from the manufacturer when you call it in, it is a real pleasure to find a company that works to make it right.DS

Sorry to hear. Thanks for the update.