AVADirect Deluxe Quiet Gaming Desktop PC Review

Conclusion: Overall Strong, But Needs Refinement

AVADirect actually did a pretty solid job on this build. This is the third iteration of their quiet gaming PC that I've tested and the best of the three, and that's not just owing to the progress of the underlying hardware. The NZXT H630 is a night and day improvement over the old NZXT H2 and goes a long way towards doing justice to the efforts of the engineers behind the build.

What AVADirect needs now is to streamline it. The rubber fan mounts have to go, and with that, a serious re-evaluation of their shipping methods. I've long bemoaned their stuff as being overpacked: the case box, packed inside a larger box, surrounded by packing peanuts, because AVADirect is trying to kill my cats. The only SI that makes shipment more of a nuisance is Origin and their giant wooden crates. The fact that this overprotective shipping method still failed to keep the fans in their mounts (ignoring the general flimsiness of rubber fan mounts) suggests to me that the only thing stopping it from being overkill is that it's just not very good at its job.

The BitFenix Recon is also essentially unnecessary in this build. I suspect the fans are overkill, but I'm not going to complain since the system is so quiet anyhow and it's not like too much airflow ever killed a system. I'd revise the cooling system by replacing the Recon with in-line resistors and replacing the Zalman Cube with a 140mm closed loop liquid cooler, using two 140mm fans sandwiching the radiator and running at ~5V.

Finally, I think we're about ready to kill the mechanical storage entirely. The silencing enclosure for it is a nice touch if you must have mechanical storage, but it's not something I would go for in my primary system. That said, I do actually applaud AVADirect for opting not to include an optical drive. I barely use the one in my desktop, and it's easy enough to just get a USB one to plug in when you need it.

If it wasn't for the shipping snafus and slight overengineering of the interior, I'd say this is unequivocally the best quiet gaming machine AVADirect has sent us yet. They've done a fine job engineering it, now they just need to refine and streamline. I can't harp on the overabundance of part selection on their site; that's their business model and at this point unique to them. They just need to harness that abundance perfectly, and with this system, they're very close.