What’s the opinion on buying pre-built gaming PCs? I’m pretty sure there’s a certain sense of pride that comes with building your own PC, but I also recognize that not everybody has all the time in the world to research motherboards, RAM timings, and all that jazz. Like, say, look at this PC. It’s the Digital Storm Black|Ops (The irony of promoting a black op!), and A) it looks pretty damn cool B) it’s sufficiently powerful to run Crysis on Damn High settings. I mean, I think so; Crysis is a mystery wrapped in an enigma hidden in a big box of cliches.
It comes in three configuration, Performance ($1,709), Enthusiast ($2,104), and Extreme ($3,102).
Performance is built around an Intel Core i5 750 and Nvidia GTX 275.
Enthusiast is built around an Intel Core i7 920 (I overclocked my Core i7 860 from 2.8GHz to 3.8GHz, so yay for me) and Nvidia GTX 285.
Extreme is built around an Intel Core i7 960 and an ATI 5870.
Presumably you’d have to work on Wall Street to afford the Extreme model. And then, considering Wall Street dudes work 80 hours per week, I question the sense in buying a gaming PC in the first place. But maybe you’re a rich kid?
Something that piqued my interest: Digital Storm’s Sub-Zero Liquid Cooling. Think of how much you’d be able to overclock an Intel Core i7 with a damn cool system.
And look at that cable management! My system looks like a New York City rat nest compared to that.
Oh, another good thing that comes with buying one of these pre-built, boutique systems: you have someone to call if and when something goes wrong. If my system were to catch on fire, I’d have no one to talk to for tech support. Presumably I’d be capable of troubleshooting what went wrong, being that I’m Mr. Build a PC, but, again, not everyone has that kind of time. It’s far easier to call tech support and say, “Hey, this thing I bought is broken. I’m RMAing it in the morning.”