MicroPro's DS Review on my order

First off I would like to thank DigitalStorm for all the great communication they had with me during my ordering process.

And now I want to go ahead and go into the bad part of my review. The only issue I have is... well crap I can't come up with anything. The free shirt I got which was an XL is a little tight. I guess I needed a XXL.

Here were my stage dates:
Stage 1: 8/31
Stage 2: 9/02
Stage 3: 9/02
Stage 4: 9/03
Stage 5: 9/06
Stage 6: 9/16
Stage 7: 9/16
Delivered: 9/22

When I went to order my new gaming computer I searched all over the internet. Looking at the different companies. I almost bought an Alien Ware pc just for the name. But after reading the reviews over the years on the company I decided not to. Then I just happen to stumble on Digital Storm. I had never heard of you guys but found you off of a review site.

After playing around with the builds and reading posts on the forums I came up with my build. My main concern was over heating. The last computer I got from iBuypower overheated constantly. Not to mention parts on it slowly stopped working. I found out they had used refurbished hardware to build my pc. They said they do this to keep their costs down. So the parts were already 2+ years old when I bought them...

Here is my build.

System Configuration:

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Black OPS Assassin Edition
Processor: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI (Intel X58 Chipset)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1000W Digital Storm Certified (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition Highly Recommended)
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (120GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Drive Force Series CSSD-F120GB2-BRKT)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM)
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Video Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 6: Sub-Zero LCS Dual Loop: CPU & Single Video Card
H20 Tube Color: White Tubing with High-Performance Fluid (UV Lighting Reactive)
Chassis Airflow: Upgrade Chassis With Zalman Performance Fans (Up to 6 Fans)
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (UV) (Creates Glowing Effect for H20 Tubes)
CPU Boost: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Xtra Large)
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year

Sub-Total: $3,227.00
Tax: $0.00
S&H: $200.00 <-- I wanted a crate. Glad I did to.
Grand Total: $3,427.00

This was not my original order. DS actually called me and told me that they do not have anymore of the motherboard I wanted and they would upgrade me to the next one for $10. So I told them to go ahead.

And then later during performance testing they found that it was pushing my power supply too high so they called me up and told me about this and they upgraded me to the 1k watt one for an additional charge. lol With they could of done it for free.

During stage 5 I started to get worried about my order since it seemed to be taking so long and so I emailed Alex. He responded back within the hour and explained what was going on with my pc. He also said they should be done with the final tests within the next day and it should be shipped out before the end of the week. And he was right.

When it was time for FedEx to deliver my pc I waited at home. Checking every couple of minutes to see if they were there yet. lol Major Stage 8 syndrome.

When they showed up this little old lady got out of the truck and made sure I was home before trying to remove my pc. She couldn't hardly even slide it in the truck. We ended up getting a hand-truck and it took both of us to get it up my stairs on the porch. Dang this sucker felt like it weighed over 100lbs. And it was huge. The crate it came in was big enough for probably two adults to lay down in it.

Once I got it in I had to use an electric screw driver to remove the 15 3 inch screws out of the crate. After removing these I found the foam that sealed my pc in the crate. At first I couldn't figure out how to remove this. I wasn't sure if I was suppose to dig it out or what. Then I noticed I could pull it out. Very tight seal to. And there was my pc. All wrapped up and in perfect condition.

Once I got my pc out I had to open it up and remove all of the foam inside of it. I didn't even have to re-seat anything inside of it.

The PC booted up the first time with no problem and so far I have had no problems transferring over files and installing all the games I wanted on it. I ended up sharing the folders I needed on my old pc and then connected to it through my network. Then it was just a simple copy and paste. It probably took me about 4 hours to move over all the files I needed. About 300GB of data. I also had to rearrange my desk since this pc is so much bigger than my last one.

In the future I will definitely go through Digital Storm again to order my new computers. You guys are amazing. And I'm loving playing all my games on the highest settings again with no lag at all. And even while playing these games for hours my pc still blows cold air out of the top of it. While sitting beside it, it is almost like having an air conditioner blowing on you. lol

I also need to figure out how to turn off this annoying blueish colored light that stays on all the time even when the pc is off. It's like I have this night light on cause of it.

Oh yeah and the white tubes + the UV light doesn't seem to do crap. I was expecting this amazing black light affect but there isn't one. =(


I will upload all the pictures I took later and add them to this post.

EDIT: I cleaned up the specs list to make it easier to read. -- Alex

Edited by Alex - 24 Sep 2010 at 12:43pm