I was skeptical at first about buying from this company because it seemed almost too good to be true. However, I've had my df900 for a month now, and I'm glad I did. The system works great, and the support has been fantastic. I would definitely buy from them again.

Excellent transaction; recommend this company. Salesperson was very helpful and knowledgeable. I gave him my requirements (including price) and he put together a system. I went away to do some more research and concluded that what he had suggested was right for me. I called him once during my research. He called back fairly quickly and gave me more information. At no time was there any pressure to place the order.  
 
The machine arrive 4/29/09 (place 4/15/09) and has been working without any problems at all since then. The quality of the workmanship was excellent with the exception of the one loose screw on the bottom of the case. Very easily removed in case I ever find that I need it!

This review was modified by its author, cdWeiner, on 5/12/09 11:28 AM.

I had no problems with purchasing of custom built laptop and it works just fine. If i have any questions about anything, these people have always answered in minutes.

This is a class act company.I got what I ordered in a timely fashion,quality of the build is excellent.This is without a doubt the best deal going on custom built computers.Have had the system for 4 months now and not a single problem.  
I would highly recommend AVA Direct.

I ordered a game system from avadirect earlier this year and it has turned out to be a total nightmare. Soon after my system was hipped to me I began experiencing video corruption do to the motherboard which is common on nvidia 750,780,790 motherboards. I took some time to diagnose it was the board causing my problem and not a video card. I asked for an RMA for a new intel board but was unable to do so because of a family emergency. Bios updates were released by evga the board maker which did not solve the issue and I asked for another chance to RMA the system. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. It was offered an asus maximus formula. By this time I was pleased to be getting anything from ava and getting rid of a board that crashed almost daily when playing videos.  
 
Now the real hell began. When the pc returned from its RMA its was in a nightmare condition. The pc was DOA since the power buttons and front lights were all wired wrong. The power button wired to a hard drive light. The old sata cables from the evga board were reamed into the sockets on the asus maximus formula and would not even stay in. I had to cut them out with a pair of scissors. The pc then had performance issues including a fps problem as well as overvoltage issues and soon the RAM died. Ava eventually decided to pay for the shipping to send it back to them. When it arrived back the second time it was in somewhat better condition. The wiring was a bit better however they decided to solve all my hardware problems though overvolting the pc even more than what the board was doing on its on own. Northbridge 1.51v for stock 2.1v corsair ram overvolted to 2.3 and fsb termination to 1.32 A stock system does not need these kinds of crazy volts. I have consulted a technician not affiliated with ava to confirm this and he was shocked by this. I have been working with him to get the pc somewhat working and following his recommendations. He had me flash the board bios to start with to a rampage formula bios and lower voltages and stress test with prime 95 and other tests which prove ava is out of their mind to have used such settings. The tech also thinks my cpu may be degraded as the cpu pll volts is much too high for a 45nm chip and can't be lowered on this board. I have many errors and odd behaviors and very unstable fps in most games using this pc.  
 
I have kept a detailed account of this in a forum thread at (link forcibly removed)I advise anyone wanting to do business with this company to read that thread. If you do decide to buy from ava never for the love of god RMA it for a repair they will screw it up even more than it is.  
 
Note: I had to edit out a link to a forum thread where I keep detailed records of ava's terrible job and edit out a few choice words to ava.

This review was modified by its author, Tanaka, on 12/7/08 6:41 AM.

Using AVA Direct, was most certainly, the worst mistake i have made when choosing an online retailer. In fact, i consider this experience to be a $210 lesson. For a college student, this is a significant amount of money.  
 
My Experience:  
 
I had purchased the msi gx720 (MS-1722) barebone laptop with the high resolution option. Assembly of the laptop took two weeks (which is standard for a custom laptop). Upon receiving the laptop, i added my hard drive and memory (**less expensive elsewhere**).  
 
I turned the system on and booted to my vista cd. As i was setting up the Operating system, I noticed that the vibrations from my fingertips, gently touching the keyboard to enter the system name, had caused the crystals in the display to displace (similar to pressing on an lcd screen). Needless to say, this was unacceptable for a brand new laptop. Either the screen was defective or of exceptionally poor quality. The following day, I contacted my AVA Direct sales representative Joe, and i explained my situation. I asked for his advice, and he instructed me to contact MSI for repair under warranty.  
 
I called MSI directly after speaking with the Rep., and they had told me to ship the laptop to them "as a barebone system", otherwise they are not responsible for damage(s) to the additional parts (processor, wireless, etc.).  
 
I was not about to pull apart this brand new laptop, and pay for shipping both ways to MSI (**It takes 7-10 business days for MSI to diagnose and repair the problem**).  
 
The following day i contacted the same sales representative, and i explained MSI's requirements for warranty repair. He could not offer any additional suggestions. Finally, i asked to him to give me an RMA number, to send the laptop back (Denoting a "RETURN" of the defective merchandise).  
 
Prior to sending the laptop back, I also checked the AVA Direct site for warranty information, and "Terms of Sale" link located on the same page. Apparently the AVA Direct website is not Mozilla compliant, because i could not access the link (I also took screen shots of faulty link, which i cannot access to this day, from several different locations.). I decided to just send the laptop back.  
 
The day following after the package was scheduled for delivery; i called Joe, to confirm that they had received the laptop, and he did. Additionally, I asked; when i could expect my card to be credited. The clerk was surprised by my inquiry, believing that i had sent the laptop back for repair (which was never offered to me). He then proceeded to explain, that there was a 15% restocking fee.  
 
I was certainly surprised to find out that the return of my defective laptop was subject to a 15% restocking fee. Most importantly, I was not informed of this restocking fee, nor did i have the ability to retrieve this information from the AVA Direct website (I later determined that link was only faulty using Mozilla). I explained this to Joe that the "Terms of Sale" portion of their website was down, and he told me that "he would note this in the return request".  
 
Upon receiving my credit, it was $210 short. (The so called “Restocking fee") deducted from the refunded amount. I called Joe and asked him why they deducted the fee. He told me that "he had his web team check to see if the site was down the day i went to check the terms of sale, and the site was operational". (**First off; in order to check that, there is a great deal of historical logs to review for that particular date. Second; he did not know the date that i attempted to access the site.**)  
 
After arguing my case, Joe told me that he would have to consult his manager Misha, to refund the remainder of my refund. (Apparently, Misha was not in the office for several days, so Joe was not able to submit my request. Finally, when he was able to get a hold of Misha, Misa had quickly dismissed my request).  
 
Naturally, i asked for Misha's contact information. I left him over 7 messages, with no return phone call (**’great customer service’**). It wasn't until i asked for Alex, the President of AVA Direct, was Misha made immediately available.  
 
Needless to say, my conversation with Misha was not pleasant. His reasoning for not returning my restocking fee was a "lack of communication on both sides", and company policy. (A policy that is ethically questionable for selling defective or low quality merchandise).  
 
I write this detailed synopsis of my experience with AVA Direct, as a warning to those considering a future purchase with this company.  
 

This review was modified by its author, feedback-man, on 11/9/08 12:28 PM.

I looked around at a lot of places before I chose this one. I decided not to buy el cheapo PC's from iburypower or cyberpower, as they didn't have the greatest reviews. It was actually this site that convinced me to go with AVA Direct.  
 
The service and computer are/were excellent. They keep you updated throughout the process. They thoroughly test your PC before they send it to you. All I had to do once I received it was plug up my monitor and plug the comp in. It worked right out of the box with all the needed software installed.  
 
Yes, the price is more expensive than other places (although not nearly as expensive as some). I think it's worth it, though. I don't know enough about computers to build my own, and I wanted a top of the line computers. And that's what they gave me.  

After MUCH deliberation I decided upon AVADirect. Their prices were great and they offered a 3 year warranty. Comparative to Dell, the PC I was buying was $400 cheaper. AD's website offers a lot of customization, if you know computers it's great, not so much if you don’t because the level of customization is quite in-depth. After asking many questions & having all questions answered promptly, I gained confidence and decided to place my order. Even after the sale my salesman, Stephen, continued to answer my many questions. I went ahead and ordered the computer on February the 8th. One nice thing of note is that I upgraded my power supply on my order & Misha emailed me that my case already had a 400 watt power supply so they were giving me $33.04 credit. That was great to see I was voluntarily given a price break. After my credit was approved (they make you fill out a bank form to stop fraud) my build began. Immediately after ordering I decided to change a couple of things, a restore CD/partition to be added & I added another hard disk. None of this held up the order. Per Misha the restore CD is not standard on non-gaming rigs but he authorized it on my machine as an exception. After my computer was assembled the burn in process began. After no errors my PC was shipped out on February 20th.. I got my PC 10 days after I ordered. The box came in a well padded box within a box w/a LOT of peanuts. It all seemed very nicely packaged & the computer was well protected. After opening it, I took the PC out and I did notice two issues. One, a back case screw had fell out, when I went to screw it back in it would not screw in. The screw was stripped. Secondly there was a minor, approximately 1/2", somewhat very faint but visible scratch on the front of the case. The computer came with all of the retailer manuals and CDs that came with each component. Part of my custom deal was to get free games since the competition had offered me free shipping. The games were MIA (after talking to Misha he indicated that free games are not standard & this is why they weren't included). A quick call to Stephen and he sent them out that day. So talk about RESPONSIVE! Upon taking the computer home and firing it up I was greeted with a fully installed Vista with no bloatware. The computer booted up quickly into Windows Vista and without issue. I was also pleased to find that AD had included an extra USB card for 2 additional USB 2.0 ports. After poking around some more I was also pleased to find a folder with benchmarks & info inc. burn-in data. Nice touch!  
 
All seemed to work very well however, when I went to install my first game there was no data drive. After a quick visual inspection to see that the drive was actually I decided reseat the cables. Opening the case was revealed that the cabling was professionally done. After I went back into Vista I still saw no sign of the drive. Normally I'd call AD and test out the support but AD only has M-F support. After poking around on the net I finally stumbled upon the answer by figuring out that the drive simply hadn’t been formatted. After doing this I was able to get the drive up. My only other issues were with the on-board sound, which I was able to figure out by reading the manual. After using the PC for 72 hours+ now I am very happy with it. It runs Vista VERY fast & the game demos I have run also ran smooth as butter at 1900x1200.  
 
Here are the specifications on my machine $1634  
• THERMALTAKE, Tsunami Black Mid-Tower Case  
• ANTEC, NeoPower Blue High Efficiency Power Supply, 650W  
• ASUS, P5N-E SLI, LGA775, nForce 650i SLI  
• INTEL, Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Quad-Core, 2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB  
• OCZ, 2GB (2 x 1GB) Gold GX XTC PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz SDRAM DIMM  
• ASUS, EN8800GT/HTDP/1G/A, GeForce® 8800GT 1GIG  
• WD, 150GB WD Raptor & WD, 250GB WD  
• LITE-ON, LH-20A1L Black/Beige 20x DVD±RW  
• MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition  
• WARRANTY, 3 years limited parts & 3 year labor warranty  
 
I am very happy with AVADirect. Steve/Misha do a great job of responding to inquiries quickly. To me that is huge because when I have a lot of money invested I ask a LOT of questions and I'm impatient. There were a few bumps on the road but that is to be expected with a custom computer. The one real issue is the hard disk not being formatted, something which a less experienced user would may not be able to figure out.  
PROS:  
Lowest prices on the net  
Extensive customization options  
English speaking staff  
Very patient employees with great technical knowledge  
VERY responsive to questions  
No pressure to order by Sales staff  
Order was processed, tested and shipped quickly  
Authorization of credit to prevent credit card fraud  
Mistakes on order were corrected very quickly  
PC wiring is done very neatly w/out extra fees  
Windows Vista actual CD & docs included  
Windows Vista already installed and setup for you  
No bloatware installed  
Machine runs very fast, is stable and has no temperature issues  
AD offers restore partition/CD option (although see cons for more on this)  
CONS  
Less experienced users may have real trouble configuring a PC on the website  
Tech support hours are M-F  
QC did not partition/format my data drive  
QC was errant in allowing a stripped screw on my case  
QC failed to include my promised free games  
Restore CD is extra & must specifically mention it  
 
My score for my experience overall on a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being best: 87  
I deduct 8 points for the HD issue, 3 points for the scratch, 1 point for the screw and 1 point for the missing games. At this point I definitely plan to order my next PC, a laptop, from AVADirect. UPDATE - immediately after posting this review Misha called me as a follow-up to ensure all of my issues had been taken care of & to explain some of the issues that I had posted about. This was very impressive and just goes to show that AVADirect cares about each individual customer. Keeping that in mind i'd like to raise my initial score from 87 to a 95. And out of 100 that's pretty darned impressive!

This review was modified by its author, shaunh, on 2/26/08 2:18 PM.

My Experience with AVA direct was somewhat sound. It was nice to customize my rig the way i wanted from the start. They have plenty of options to choose from possible making your buying decisions some what harder than you thought :).  
Order experience was good, i contacted before purchase and they were prompt to respond with answers.  
Once the order was placed it took 18 Working days before they shipped my order. Which i understand why it took 4 days longer then their stated policy of 10-14 days for custom configurations due to coming off the holiday season working in a manufacturing myself.  
My order arrived in great condition. They over packed my computer in a box in box. They also packed foam in the computer case it's self which was a nice touch to make sure nothing got jarred loose in transit.  
I got exactly what i ordered, also included all the parts left over from the build in side the motherboard box including all the manuals and software. Although a fan bracket from the P182 case i ordered was broken, but it is a little use for my system.  
Out of the box and powered up in minutes. Loaded right into Vista smooth. Glad to see no garbage programs like other vendors like to force on you. Was playing Crysis that night with no problems.  
After a week of burning the midnight oil, i have a few crashes, all Vista related, nothing that the company could be a fault for.  
 
Pros:  
-Excellent part selection  
-Quality assembly  
-Packaged and Shipped Well  
-Prompt responses  
-Quality Control  
-No Bloated OS!  
 
Cons  
-You have to be proactive as the status of your order  
-Windows sticker on the side of the case  
 
Over All i am 98% satisfied with my purchase. Why not 100, well 2 days after i placed my order i came across Leadcomp.com which resides at the same address as AVA and has virtually the same configuration options... but that site was $30 cheaper for the same configuration.  
 
For pics of my build, head to http://www.gamespot.com/users/deadwolf13/images  
 
Last note if you really want someone to build you a computer they way you want it but not at an outrageous price, then AVAdirect/Leadcomp are the way to go.

Special ordered a new desktop for browsing and graphics work. Chose AVA based on the reviews found here and the fact that they are relatively nearby compared to other options. The machine is exactly as ordered. The innards are put together tight and clean. They worked with me to handle some minor issues with the order, and even called to explain a minor correction to the credit card charge.

Purchasing a custom-built computer from an online retailer can be a formidable experience. You never know what level of interaction you will have to help get all of the right pieces. Even after doing the research on different components, OS, CPU, etc. there are, inevitably, things the end user may not know to get the entire system to work well together.  
I found that working with AVA Direct was a wholly stress-free and positive experience. After placing what I thought was the perfect order, they got back to me with some little tweaks to ensure compatibility between memory, OS and the components. And, surprisingly, their suggestions ended up not costing me anymore money.  
The ordering system has a good post-purchase feedback system and I was updated on the status of my new computer during the assembly and burn-in process. I never felt like my order had entered a void and knew at all times how the new machine was moving through their system.  
When my new computer arrived, it was well packed and the installation CDs and instruction manuals for all the components were nicely packaged together. I had to open up the unit to install an additional existing SATA drive, which I had been using in my previous computer, so I had a chance to see how elegantly they had bundled wiring inside the case to ensure maximum airflow. It showed, in their cable/wiring management that they had taken care in the assembly.  
My purchasing experience with AVA Direct was very positive.  

I ordered a custom Clevo M570RU/8E-SE Notebook from AVADIRECT. They were prompt, courteous, and professional throughout the entire process -- even ensuring my satisfaction after receiving the final product. I have already recommended them to friends, and I am looking forward to ordering future products from them.

after MANY months of comparing/evaluating MANY custom pc builders, only three builders made my final cut: vigor gaming, thinkmate*, and avadirect.  
 
after applying my own "value rating" based on "cost per critical component" and customer satisfaction, avadirect got my order for my first custom build.  
 
i knew i made the right choice when i ordered a component upgrade i certainly didn't need and misha emailed to ask me if i was SURE i wanted it. after sheepishly recognizing my ignorance, i enjoyed saving the $184.00 i would've spent needlessly...had misha not pointed out my folly.  
 
while vigor gaming also enjoys a very good reputation, which is slightly higher than avadirect's, (both win in this category, though), vigor just doesn't offer a better value. if you're not well-versed with computer components and their value (as i was not), email me if you'd like to know how i determined "cost per critical component".  
 
*thinkmate. if you're not necessarily looking for a gaming system (my case), but want another option, think...thinkmate. but, unless you're looking for workstations or servers, comparing thinkmate against avadirect is like comparing apples to tomatoes. ;-) i'm also an avid flight simmer when not engaged with microsoft access. avadirect won.  
 
[THERMALTAKE, Armor Black Full-Tower Case w/ Window-- PC POWER & COOLING, Silencer® 610W EPS12V Power Supply--GIGABYTE, GA-P35-DS3R, LGA775, Intel P35, 1333MHz FSB, DDR2-800 8GB /4--INTEL, Core™ 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core, 3.00GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 12MB L2 Cache, 45nm--ZALMAN, CNPS9500 Copper CPU Cooler--KINGSTON, 8GB (4 x 2GB) ValueRAM PC2-5300 DDR2 667MHz CL5 SDRAM DIMM--PNY, 8800 GTX 768MB PCIe, GeForce™ 8800 GTX, 768MB GDDR3--WESTERN DIGITAL, 500GB WD Caviar® SE16 (WD5000AAKS), SATA II 300MB/s, 7200-RPM, 16MB cache--SONY, CRX320EE Black 52x32x52-16A DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive--MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit]  
 
very quiet. very fast. very cool...aesthetically and thermally.  
 
 
 
 

Update: System had a good out-of-box experience. during the build, Misha called wice to explain changes that were required, and the resolution was an upgrade at no additional cost. Delivery was prompt.  
 
Readers should also know that AVA Direct does read and comment on these reviews. I will be happy to recommend AVA Direct, based on my experience, and I would expect to use them again.  
 
Update: Steve and Aysa have both been in contact with me to ensure that the purchase experience continues to be very good.  
 
I chose AVA Direct when I discovered a number of favorable reviews on this site. The machine should arrive late this week or early next week. So far, I have a favorable impression - Mischa called the morning after my order to confirm some discrepancies in the order. Asya processed the financial credit form quickly, and the order is in Processing status. I'll add more to this review after the machine arrives.

This review was modified by its author, gopherkitty, on 2/7/08 7:52 PM.

Ordered a new computer before Christmas. Arrived three to four weeks later, which was not too unreasonable considering the vacation time between as well as a change in the order which they were kind enough to do. The order was double-packed to make sure everything came in one piece, and the computer itself was stuffed with foam to keep the parts from moving during shipment. As for the computer itself, the build quality was very good, everything was neatly arranged and wiring was extremely well done, even on the back side of the computer. Assorted parts from the computer and other parts ordered came in the motherboard box, neatly arranged and with a folder with details on the computer as well as tests they ran.  
Setting up the computer itself was rather quick, just plugged in all the essentials and was ready to go. There was a minimal amount of bloatware and everything was working correctly.  
Price was about 400 dollars over the price of buying the parts separately at online retailers, about 18% of the purchase price. For that, there is the cost of not having to build it yourself and having a three year warranty. If you don't happen to have time to build one (at college right now), the price is comparable over other sites like Dell . The selection of parts is great as well, there are several selections for each part, like RAM and PSU. Some have over a dozen options to choose from.  
The most important part in a small business is probably the customer service, where it can differ from larger companies. AVA does a great job in this regard. With some minor issue, leaving them a message on the website, they responded within thirty minutes. The response was from the person who put the computer together as well, not a random generic technician as with most larger companies.  
All-in-all, a great buy, especially if it isn't summer and you need a computer fast.

This review was modified by its author, zyrxserilus, on 1/28/08 5:35 PM.