V3 Gaming PC Avenger Review: A New Challenger Appears
by Dustin Sklavos on May 16, 2012 2:20 AM ESTConclusion: Odd Expectations
My time with the V3 Gaming PC Avenger has admittedly been more drawn out than I think any of us would've liked, but now that I've gotten a feel for it and put it through its paces I'm able to make some fairly educated assessments about both the boutique and the underlying hardware.
First, while I understand why the V3 Avenger is operating on the X79 platform, I still think it's overkill for the majority of users and amusingly enough, the guys over at V3 do agree. Where we diverge is on the i7-3820; this isn't the decrepit family member that the Yonah-based Core Solo was back in the day, but honestly I feel like it's a very niche product and echo Anand's sentiments. I'm of the opinion that if you're going X79, you should go big or go home: that means an i7-3930K hex-core and/or SLI.
Second, I'm sure approximately none of you are surprised to see the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 perform as well as it does on its own. This thing has been selling out consistently since release, and judging by our performance and power consumption numbers, there are very good reasons for that.
Third, running a pair of inexpensive SSDs in RAID 0 instead of just going for a single larger drive still feels like a net loss. When the notoriously SSD-friendly PCMark still defers to larger individual SSDs, the writing is on the wall. A single SSD and mechanical drive seems to be the way to go.
So what about V3 Gaming PC themselves? My experiences with them were good, but I'm also press, and that's going to skew things. With any young and/or small boutique there's always the question of their longevity, so while the system that I received was generally excellent (odd configuration choices notwithstanding), you have to evaluate whether or not you're willing to give these new guys a shot. V3 has only been around since 2010, which means that theoretically none of their desktops have ever gone out of warranty yet. That said, they've also done work locally and for the government that isn't on their site, and that speaks well to their future prospects.
If you're interested in going with V3, and I certainly think they're worth considering, I'd recommend (and I think they'd recommend as well) going with their more mainstream Convoy model. The Avenger is the top-of-the-line, "I have too much money" model, while the Convoy is the more aggressive workhorse. Ivy Bridge and Z77 (when the line is updated with them) are going to give you more bang for your buck anyhow, and bound to be more price competitive with other boutiques in general. As usual, it can pay to shop around, and having one more PC boutique to consider isn't a bad thing. Hopefully, we'll still be able to talk about V3 in another five years.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
As an evaluation unit, the manufacturer ships us whatever they feel best represents their product. Obviously, we're not going to be upgrading it to 32GB RAM or more during the review process, so it doesn't really affect the review. If you're custom ordering a system and select 32GB RAM, hopefully they're good enough to let customers know that you'll need Win7 Pro/Ultimate to utilize the additional memory.DanNeely - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
More to the point, their cart will let you buy 32GB of ram and W7 Home without as much as a single warning....ggathagan - Friday, May 18, 2012 - link
This is a review of a system, as opposed to a review of a vendor's purchasing process, so I'm not sure why the latter is being discussed.Unless you actually purchased a system from them with 32GB and W7 home, you've no idea whether or not such a combination would trigger a warning message or a follow-up email from the company regarding the mismatch.
zlandar - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
I have this case for my own DIY build and love it. Very easy to install components and not too large. Little touches like case screws that remain attached to the side panel make a big difference. I normally buy black cases but the white is fine.Puzzled why V3 would not use a 240mm radiator to take advantage of the case. I have a H100 and it sits out of the way in the built-in slot in the 500R.
Also a raid 0 ssd setup is a bad idea. I use a ssd plus hard drives with no raid.
jigglywiggly - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
i love the look of that casedtolios - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - link
...makes sense only to have options for upgrading the base format...it gives you more options than an i7 LGA1155, were you've hit the ceiling with the 3770K and more or less 2x GPUs...But with the base price of this configuration exceeding a similar or better spec "home assembled" system by more than $600 (even with a 1000W PSU should you want to go for 2 or more GPUs and O/C a 6 core with more head room etc), I cannot help myself but being afraid of what they would ask once you've started tweaking those customization options...
I understand that they need to make a profit, but...still it's too much for something that is put together with mainstream components using marketing tricks in order to appeal to a half-educated crowd. (i.e. UN-needed RAID, poor O/C optimization etc)
hapsr - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
Keep them to yourself, this is a big boy gamer systems, not a PS3 lol. It just that u don't have the money so please keep window shopping Cheap one lol..oopyseohs - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
The machine looks very balanced to me. I consider a balanced machine to be one that doesn't have a clear bottleneck or one component or components that are way too good for the rest of the system. If you look at it that way, it is very balanced (not a ridiculous hex-core processor, single 680 instead of 3, SSDs, etc). It's probably not ideal for a strictly "gaming" computer since you could get an amazing one of those for probably around 1500. Don't know if v3 said anything to dustin about it being specifically for gaming or not thoughI priced everything out on newegg and it comes out to around $1950 (not exact because some stuff is not in stock), so when you consider that they do all the work for you and offer technical support which seems good based on customer reviews online and warranties, it's not too bad of a deal compared with some other manufacturers.
IVB might be a better choice for a configuration that is like this, but I think the review mentioned that this is a much more flexible platform, meaning greater headroom (X79 has a lot more upgrade options/ potential). That makes sense for the "top" model that the company offers. The i7-3820 and a decent X79 board really is not that much more expensive (if at all) than an i7-3770K + decent MB, and it probably runs cooler and overclocks a little better actually.
The only things I would change in this build would probably be the SSDs to a single SSD, and 8GB of memory because I would never use 16. lastly, I have seen the white 500R in person and it looks a lot better than it does in the pictures, not sure why. IMO it is pretty good looking. totally defending v3 in this post lol.
Craig234 - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - link
Did you mean "nebulous" or "dubious"? Nebulous doesn't make sense.shumicpi - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
The configuration is very good but the price not :(shumi
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