V3 Gaming PC Avenger Review: A New Challenger Appears

Conclusion: 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.