Halfway around the world review

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.

nice system, but put the sound card in the upper slot

oh thats sweet

I switched it around. Thanks for the heads up.

Originally posted by Cyphercide I switched it around. Thanks for the heads up.

  you put it in the small, upper slot, the one that it looks like it was made to go into?     lol, rig looks great,  and now you have full powa!

Awesome rig congrats man!

lol

That Hailstorm is one big case for sure. I would imagine the airflow is great.

Thanks. I like it. I just keep it on automatic. The only thing I wish I could change is the temperature unit from celsius to fahrenheit. But I've gotten used to it now.