AVADirect wasn’t really a systems builder on our radar until late last year when we reviewed their Avant Mini Cube Gaming PC. After extensive testing, we found that the system was well configured, well built, and well priced, quickly propelling AVADirect to the top as one of our favorite custom PC builders.
Recently, AVADirect sent us another one of the systems in their lineup, the AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC, which as its name implies is AVADirect’s quiet gaming PC offering based on AMD’s X370 Ryzen platform.
AVADirect Quiet Gaming PC Specs Desktop AVADirect X370 Quiet Gaming PC Case Phanteks Eclipse [...]AVADirect is a boutique system builder with its origins in the suburbs of Cleveland Ohio. It’s probably not one of the first names that pop into your head as a system builder, but they’ve been making everything from gaming to business systems for over a decade.
Recently, AVADirect launched their Avant Mini Cube Gaming PC which is exciting because it’s based on Corsair’s excellent Carbide 240 Air PC case. Despite the relatively small size of the mATX formfactor case, AVADirect managed to fully kit it out with an overclocked Intel Core i7-6700K and GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition. Given how much we love big [...]
With the introduction of more power efficient CPUs and GPUs along with the introduction of more flexible storage form factors such as M.2, the once massive gaming laptop is now significantly smaller. Over the past couple years, MSI has been among the pioneers of the new trend of ever shrinking gaming laptops, introducing an array of portable systems including the GS70, GS60, GS30 and now the GS40.
Today we’ll be reviewing MSI’s latest GS40 Phantom which is the 14″ variant of MSI’s GS series of gaming laptops. The GS series gaming laptops have always been portable gaming notebooks with high [...]
Back at CES earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to meet a couple guys from the iBUYPOWER team who were very excited to talk to us about their new SpecOps Program, a new initiative started by their R&D and marketing staff to help customers choose optimal system configurations for specific use cases. If anyone has ever purchased a system from a boutique vendor like iBUYPOWER, you’ll know that you don’t get much guidance in terms of parts selection. You simply go into the system configurator, do your research, and choose your own parts. The SpecOps Program however, helps guide customers through this process in a transparent [...]
Way back at CES 2014, Valve made a huge splash at the show announcing their intent to popularize PC gaming in the living room. In order to do this, Valve was building a custom Steam OS which would either be installed by an end user to their own gaming PC, or be bundled with Steam Machines – Valve approved gaming PCs manufactured by their PC OEM partners.
While Valve and their PC OEM partners created a lot of hype during the show, the Steam Machine concept has pretty much fizzled out in the past year as Steam have made no big announcements regarding the status of their Steam OS or Steam Machines. With [...]
It’s really no secret that I love building my own PCs and it’s quite rare that you’d see me buy a pre-fab desktop. For me, there’s simply no value add in ordering a custom PC built with off the shelf parts I can easily put together myself. However, there are some system builders who’ve found ways to provide value add for enthusiasts such as myself by developing stuff like exclusive components or enhanced warranties that are far superior in comparison to the ones offered by PC component manufacturers.
Today we’ll be reviewing the CyberPowerPC Zeus Mini-I 780, which is a brand new system from [...]
You know, after reviewing a number of CyberPowerPC systems, I’ve always wondered how some of their naming schemes work. I mean, with a name comprised of badass sounding greek gods, natural disasters, adjectives, and numbers combined to form a single name that makes almost no sense, but sounds ridiculously awesome, it almost makes you wonder where the heck they come up with all these names.
Now, you’re probably asking why I’m even talking about CyberPowerPC’s system naming scheme. Well, that’s because today we’ll be reviewing a brand new system from CyberPowerPC, which [...]
When Razer first launched original Blade notebook all the way back in 2011, I think very few people could imagine how far Razer would get as a system integrator. At the time, Razer was facing quite the uphill battle being not only a first time system integrator, but also having a product that was both underpowered and overpriced. Carrying a mid-range mobile graphics card along with a dual core processor at the time and costing nearly double of what many of the big box manufacturers were charging for a similarly equipped system, many thought that the Blade concept wasn’t going to be a very long lived project. However, with its great design [...]
Here at Custom PC Review, we generally don’t do too many reviews on pre-built systems. I’m a huge proponent of doing my own custom builds, but it’s understandable that not everyone has the time to spend building new systems and having the knowledge of building your own systems sometimes does come at a price – especially when all of your friends discover how much cheaper it is when you build a system for them (and invariably the issue of you becoming free tech support as soon as the system has any issues).
This is why today we’ll be reviewing a pre-built system from boutique PC builder, CyberPowerPC. While [...]
Years ago when HP/Voodoo first unveiled the ENVY, it was one the best looking ultraportable notebooks on the market. It had a full carbon fiber chassis topped off with a high gloss layer and boasted an ultra thin profile even before Ultrabooks were cool. Now years after that first introduction, HP has fully incorporated the ENVY line into their lineup of notebooks, so let’s see what HP has done with their latest iteration of their finest ultraportables.
Today we’ll be reviewing the HP ENVY 4 TouchSmart (ENVY 4-1102xx) Ultrabook. As suggested by its name, the ENVY 4 TouchSmart will include a touchscreen, which has gotten more and more [...]
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