5/5

posted Feb-28-2007

Dear All,

Having spent about 3 months last year investigating the various options open to me for purchasing a gaming machine of world class standards and performance, I came across the very informative online magazine HardOCP.

Without doubt this magazine is in its own class when it comes to reviewing PC integrators and the products they produce.

The 2006 HardOCP Awards rated OPC extremely favourably and I was interested to note the amount of time the company's CEO, Mario Cifaldi, invested in discussing and resolving issues which arose from the HardOCP article.

In the three months of investigation I checked many integrators, magazines and forums. Finally I picked up the phone and called. I was immediately speaking to OPC’s “Point Man” Aaron.

While explain my desires and wishes, Aaron recommended a number of options that even saved me money, while pointing out performance trends and real world testing results OPC conduct “in-house” in order to get the Best BANG for your BUCK.

Of course my situation is not normal. I am an Australian Expatriate living in Zurich Switzerland. This put off a number of other Boutique Integrators immediately. Aaron on the other hand said this would be no problem.

I order my machine on the 22nd of December 2006. 4-5 weeks was the communicated delivery time. By the second week of January I had contacted Aaron and Keith Reineke the company CFO regarding my machine and its estimated time of arrival. Due to unforeseen issues they both confirmed delivery times were getting longer and 8 weeks was more likely. They apologised for the delays and their explanations were detailed and concise. Working in the technology sector myself, this was entirely understandable. At this point I also asked for a few changes to my machine build, Aaron was more than happy to confirm the inclusion of these devices.

However, at this point in time I did explain that I had hard deadline of the 22nd of February for receiving my machine. This was due to a large yearly LAN event here in Zurich.

I won’t lie. The waiting was extremely difficult and the time taken to build this machine was beyond my comprehension.

By February 12th the pressure was on. As a technology project manager by trade, I began to tighten the screws in various ways. All credit must go to Keith and Aaron; they kept their cool and started making adjustments based on my actions.

At the last moment there was a Motherboard-Sound Card conflict that threatened to derail the whole thing. At this point Aaron and Keith really made OPC stand out above the pack. At their own expense they upgraded the UPS International shipping category to ensure my deadline was met. That alone represents a hell of a lot of money and a hell of a lot of customer service in my opinion.

It finally shipped at 16:00 from OPC on Tuesday the 20th of February. The PC made it to Zurich at 11:00am on Thursday morning the 22nd of February. I was up and running at the LAN Event the following morning at 11:00am the 23rd of February. The machine ran all weekend without a hitch. To date, it has been bullet proof.

The PC was arguably the centre of attention for the whole LAN event and one nice fellow even donated his 30 inch Dell screen for me to play on. I believe the hardcore gamers were trying to see if the machine could handle that type of resolution.

Suffice to say I spent 6 hours looking at the biggest monitor I’ve ever seen…with not one moment of lag. It certainly brought the house down for those six hours. I’d even suggest a few of the extreme gamers had a little cry behind closed doors as the OPC machine was clearly the fastest thing in the room by a long shot.

Travelling the planet as part of my job and working in the technology area myself, I can categorically say these guy’s know their stuff, they are customer focused to the extreme and I have personally not seen anything like what they do anywhere else in more than 15 countries I have worked in.

Issues happen in business, especially so with over clocking PC’s. What is unusual is that OPC guarantees their over clocking work to the end-consumer and that is a value added service I have never seen.

In closing, you can’t expect things to go without issues arising in IT, but, what you can expect from OPC is that they are doing their absolute best all the time and they guarantees their work. That sets them apart from the rest.

On a personal note:

I've got to say I’m REALLY happy I found these guys. I'd say they now have my PC business for life...and I'm recommending them to everyone who asks.

This review was modified by AussieGiant on February 28 2007 08:56:37 AM

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