This is rather interesting...
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODc2
There's a link at the bottom of the article to their forum discussion of that article.
I have to say, I like HardOCP's approach with anonymous system buying, so that manufacturers can't hand-pick and tune a special review system. I like that what they're getting is a customer experience like any of you would. I do think they're being a bit stubborn but I also agree that a faulty system for over $3000 isn't quite a pleasant experience when you buy from someone like Falcon. Whether the ATI's motherboard was really faulty or not, I agree it was a crappy choice by Falcon for such a gaming system.
I'm not trying to put down Falcon here, I'm sure they did a lot of things right to get where they are today but this shows that a lot of research is needed for any company before buying a system, no matter their rating or rep. Shame on ATI too for making such a shoddy chipset.
It was also quite interesting to see that it does matter to Falcon and ATI quite a lot what the reviews say. Some people may think that companies simply don't give a crap about bad reviews because they earn enough anyway but this proves that it matters to them quite a bit, especially nowadays.
Considering everything that's been said by all the parties, I am now more cautious than ever if I were to buy from top PC manufacturers. I want to stay away from motherboards with the current ATI chipset, and I'm much less inclined to pick BFG as a company for GeForce video cards for the time being. I hope to see better QA and products from all of them in the future.
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