Hello all,
Here are the specs of my new system that I received last Saturday (Nov 12th)--purchase to dispatch was 14 (long) working days.
Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£72)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
-------------------------------
And here are the build details:
Built By Sam Garner
Tested by Garnet Heller
QC'd by Adnaan Marban
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
-------------------------------
Ordering, the Wait and Support (Phone & Chat):
As I'm sure everyone reading this post is aware, PCS has one of the best, user-friendly and easy-to-navigate configuration sites. I don't see how anyone could have difficulty picking exactly what they want for their computer. As reiterated by many on the forum, the worst part is waiting for your PC. In my case, it was becoming unbearable towards the end. I should note that after I ordered the PC, I did regret not getting the 5 working day build time for £39 because I valued getting the computer early more than that. Maybe next time
As far as contacting PCS is concerned, they are one of the most efficient support people I have talked to. I called in with several queries and they took care of them quickly and effectively.
-------------------------------
The System
One of the most impressive points about the system is how well PCS dealt with the cables within the case. Not a single loose cable flying around that could potentially touch a fan or something. The foam insert in the case was also great and because I did not know about it, I was slightly worried about parts putting pressure on the Mobo. I guess I did not need to worry after all!
Everything else is great so far. I'm very happy with the overall performance and how cool the components stay even after a 4-hour BF3 session. For those of you that are wondering, I have custom settings on BF3--most are on high and a few are on ultra and I get anywhere between 70-110fps.
The one thing I had some trouble with was the Edimax wireless PCI card. I think it was partially my fault in the sense that it was working perfectly until I decided to install its drivers. When I did, it started giving me errors that read "Wireless LAN card not exist" and "Wireless LAN card disconnected." 3 hours of researching, driver installations and restarting did not suffice but what ended up solving the problem was "uninstalling" the card under device manager and rebooting. Upon restart, the driver installed itself and I was good to go.
-------------------------------
Delivery
Delivery was one of the reasons I got in touch with PCS because I wanted to get Saturday delivery when it turned out that my PC was going to ship on a Friday. They were nice and quick about it. I paid the £19 on Friday morning and my system was shipped in the afternoon on the same day. I got the computer at around noon on Saturday. Part of the reason I wanted to get the computer over the weekend was that I had read some horror stories about Yodel and I did not want them to have my system in their warehouse over the weekend. It also would have been very hard to time the delivery properly because I was not going to be home early this week especially yesterday, when it would have arrived had I not bought the Saturday delivery.
Despite the reviews online, however, my experience with Yodel has been perfectly fine. I don't know if I just got lucky or whether the quality of service varies greatly across the country but he arrived on time and seemed nice. There isn't much more you expect from a courier company I guess. The box was not damaged and everything seems to be fine with the PC, so I'm happy with Yodel overall. If you live in a flat on any floor other than ground floor, you should go help with guy bring the box up. I went downstairs to help him with it and it really was quite heavy, and I'm almost positive he would have dropped or at least hit the box somewhere if he were bringing it on his own.
-------------------------------
Miscellaneous:
The one thing I'm quite disappointed and upset about is the fact that I did not end up getting a copy of Batman. They had the Batman AC deal with all GPUs above GTX560 but I was told earlier today upon contacting them that they ran out of keys so I was left out. I really wanted the game and I had confirmed that I was going to get a copy but not much I can do there I guess. I just kind of wish they had set aside a copy for the computers at the time of purchase because had my computer been shipped sooner, I probably would have received a copy. But now, I won't get the game due to reasons outside of my control.
-------------------------------
Overall:
Great experience with PCS. Hopefully I won't need any/a lot post-sale tech support because that would mean something is going wrong with my system, but I'm confident that if I do need help from them, they will be very nice and effective at addressing the problems. I have read tons of positive reviews about PCS support so it's only fair to assume that they will live up to our expectations.
And finally, here are some photos:
1. http://db.tt/lUzwIJW7
2. http://db.tt/XwsaYzxY
3. http://db.tt/9cCbFuzu
4. http://db.tt/Uzz1hBLI
5. http://db.tt/JRWaUhof
6. http://db.tt/bDiJsfZu
7. http://db.tt/2KfjXwVp
8. http://db.tt/yNPZzSQF
I made the photos smaller for the sake of file size but everything should be easily visible.
Lastly, I want to say thanks to everyone on the forum who helped me finalize my specs. I was pleasantly surprised to see such an active, friendly and helpful group of people that are willing to help others make the right choices. So, thanks everyone!
-E
Here are the specs of my new system that I received last Saturday (Nov 12th)--purchase to dispatch was 14 (long) working days.
Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£72)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
-------------------------------
And here are the build details:
Built By Sam Garner
Tested by Garnet Heller
QC'd by Adnaan Marban
Packed By Anthony Cunliffe
-------------------------------
Ordering, the Wait and Support (Phone & Chat):
As I'm sure everyone reading this post is aware, PCS has one of the best, user-friendly and easy-to-navigate configuration sites. I don't see how anyone could have difficulty picking exactly what they want for their computer. As reiterated by many on the forum, the worst part is waiting for your PC. In my case, it was becoming unbearable towards the end. I should note that after I ordered the PC, I did regret not getting the 5 working day build time for £39 because I valued getting the computer early more than that. Maybe next time
As far as contacting PCS is concerned, they are one of the most efficient support people I have talked to. I called in with several queries and they took care of them quickly and effectively.
-------------------------------
The System
One of the most impressive points about the system is how well PCS dealt with the cables within the case. Not a single loose cable flying around that could potentially touch a fan or something. The foam insert in the case was also great and because I did not know about it, I was slightly worried about parts putting pressure on the Mobo. I guess I did not need to worry after all!
Everything else is great so far. I'm very happy with the overall performance and how cool the components stay even after a 4-hour BF3 session. For those of you that are wondering, I have custom settings on BF3--most are on high and a few are on ultra and I get anywhere between 70-110fps.
The one thing I had some trouble with was the Edimax wireless PCI card. I think it was partially my fault in the sense that it was working perfectly until I decided to install its drivers. When I did, it started giving me errors that read "Wireless LAN card not exist" and "Wireless LAN card disconnected." 3 hours of researching, driver installations and restarting did not suffice but what ended up solving the problem was "uninstalling" the card under device manager and rebooting. Upon restart, the driver installed itself and I was good to go.
-------------------------------
Delivery
Delivery was one of the reasons I got in touch with PCS because I wanted to get Saturday delivery when it turned out that my PC was going to ship on a Friday. They were nice and quick about it. I paid the £19 on Friday morning and my system was shipped in the afternoon on the same day. I got the computer at around noon on Saturday. Part of the reason I wanted to get the computer over the weekend was that I had read some horror stories about Yodel and I did not want them to have my system in their warehouse over the weekend. It also would have been very hard to time the delivery properly because I was not going to be home early this week especially yesterday, when it would have arrived had I not bought the Saturday delivery.
Despite the reviews online, however, my experience with Yodel has been perfectly fine. I don't know if I just got lucky or whether the quality of service varies greatly across the country but he arrived on time and seemed nice. There isn't much more you expect from a courier company I guess. The box was not damaged and everything seems to be fine with the PC, so I'm happy with Yodel overall. If you live in a flat on any floor other than ground floor, you should go help with guy bring the box up. I went downstairs to help him with it and it really was quite heavy, and I'm almost positive he would have dropped or at least hit the box somewhere if he were bringing it on his own.
-------------------------------
Miscellaneous:
The one thing I'm quite disappointed and upset about is the fact that I did not end up getting a copy of Batman. They had the Batman AC deal with all GPUs above GTX560 but I was told earlier today upon contacting them that they ran out of keys so I was left out. I really wanted the game and I had confirmed that I was going to get a copy but not much I can do there I guess. I just kind of wish they had set aside a copy for the computers at the time of purchase because had my computer been shipped sooner, I probably would have received a copy. But now, I won't get the game due to reasons outside of my control.
-------------------------------
Overall:
Great experience with PCS. Hopefully I won't need any/a lot post-sale tech support because that would mean something is going wrong with my system, but I'm confident that if I do need help from them, they will be very nice and effective at addressing the problems. I have read tons of positive reviews about PCS support so it's only fair to assume that they will live up to our expectations.
And finally, here are some photos:
1. http://db.tt/lUzwIJW7
2. http://db.tt/XwsaYzxY
3. http://db.tt/9cCbFuzu
4. http://db.tt/Uzz1hBLI
5. http://db.tt/JRWaUhof
6. http://db.tt/bDiJsfZu
7. http://db.tt/2KfjXwVp
8. http://db.tt/yNPZzSQF
I made the photos smaller for the sake of file size but everything should be easily visible.
Lastly, I want to say thanks to everyone on the forum who helped me finalize my specs. I was pleasantly surprised to see such an active, friendly and helpful group of people that are willing to help others make the right choices. So, thanks everyone!
-E
