"I looked at a lot of different sites when shopping for a new computer and chose AVA Direct due to their reasonable prices and wide array of options. After selecting my configuration and submitting the order on October 14th, I received the shipment on October 30th, which I thought was a good turnaround time for a custom computer. This is the third time I've ordered a custom computer online, each time from a different vendor, and I must say that this one is by far the best in terms of build. All parts were in working order, the wiring was neatly done, and there was no crapware loaded into the OS. It also had the latest drivers/updates, including the most recent motherboard BIOS revision. I will order from AVA Direct again in the future.

My only criticism is that their generic "processing" description for orders should be more specific. They use that description for the pre-build, build, and testing phases. It would be nice to know what stage your order is in without having to contact customer service (which I did not do). I was kind of taken by surprise when I received the email that the order had shipped and would be arriving the next day. Considering that this shipment required a signature, I would have liked a little more advanced notice. But in the grand scheme of things, that is just a minor gripe. I'm a satisfied customer. "

"I have been quite satisfied with AVA Direct. I purchased a custom notebook from them and have had no problem with the hardware, it is an:

MSI MS-1651 (GX620) Core™2 Performance Notebook, 15.4" WXGA TFT LCD, NVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT 512MB Graphics

The online support has been good for the most part, but one thing that I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO SEE is better driver support for Windows XP or Linux in their newer laptops. I understand that this is not only them and they rely on the barebones manufacturer as well as the hardware manufacturers to help with the drivers, but I can't stand Vista, and I would like alternatives to be better supported is all. But the service with the company is quite good and I would definitely recommend them for a barebones system. The ship takes some time, but that is because they do a good job and test the product which is rarely the case. I give AVA Direct my highest recommendation."

"After having received virtually no response from another computer vendor that is represented on Reseller Ratings, I canceled the order and went with AVA Direct due to their high ratings.

My experience was great.

I ordered a relatively high end desktop computer for over $2000.

I received feedback early on about some incompatibilities and I made the appropriate changes.

During the building process, which took about 10 days, I was able to communicated with one of the techs via the message board on the companies web site. I was able to ask about the possible shipping date and I received answers that turned out to be very accurate.

The computer shipped on time and arrived via UPS in a huge box in a box with lots of the non-styrofoam peanuts between the two.

There was no damage to the box and no damage that I have found to the computer. There was inflatable packing included in the computer case to prevent internal components from loosening or shaking around. A page that was included with the computer cautions to remove this packing before the computer is started.

So far the computer started and has run well.

I have no complaints with AVA Direct. AVA Direct allows custom configuration of any type of computer that is desired, provides customers with appropriate guidance for part selection, and builds the computer rapidly. The product was well-packed and appears to run well.

I will update this review if I have problems and need to deal with technical support. However, I doubt this will be the case.

AVA Direct deserves their high rating on this site.

Addendum 11/5/2008

After testing the DVD writer, I noticed that it could not write DVDs.

I contacted Tech Support and over the course of a couple of days trading email, we have yet to determine the cause of the problem. I am frustrated by the fact that this custom, faster and moderately expensive computer appears less able to perform optical disc functions than my previous inexpensive computers. Tech Support has agreed to send me a replacement DVD writer.

The obvious problem with buying a custom computer online is that essentially the customer does all the Tech Support work including hardware and software installation unless one is willing to take the time and expense to ship the entire thing back to the manufacturer.

I will update this review as things transpire.

Update: 11-23-2008

I reinstalled Windows XP and all the drivers and updates. The system does seem to run okay now.

I got the promised DVD-RW replacement but I will send it back unopened as the original unit seems to work fine.

I'm not crazy about the fact that I had to reconfigure all the software and change a internal SATA cable to get the thing to run like it should have out of the box, but in the end, it's what I paid for.

Customer Service and Tech Support has been good despite some early defensive posturing.

Update 11-27-2008

I got the replacement drive, but by the time it had arrived I had re-installed the OS and some updated drivers.

The DVD-RW in question was working fine at that point.

So I just returned the replacement DVD-RW without opening it.

I still get some unexplained lockups and slowdowns which I have not experienced with any other computers running the same software, but overall things are running well.

I probably should have paid for a better motherboard, but I guess that's my responsibility.

Happy Holidays.

Update 12-13-2008

After I have reported system instability to AVADirect, they are very interested in helping to figure out the problem. However, I cannot sit in front of my new computer while Tech Support is in the shop. The only way I can communicate with them is via email. This really points out a glaring problem with Tech Support and mailorder. I was aware of this kind of problem, but glibly thought that this computer would be new, fast, and perfect.

If your computer will need Tech Support (and many will) mailorder may NOT be the way to go.

Happy Holidays.

Update: 1/1/2009

Today I reinstalled the OS and all the drivers again. For whatever reason, everything seems to be working perfectly now.

Although the concept of mailorder is great, tech support can be dicey. Since I work everyday, I cannot sit in front of my computer with a tech on the phone to work out bugs.

However, despite that, the computer seems to work very well after a couple of reinstalls of the OS and drivers.

I'll upgrade my review a bit.

Happy New Year."

"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.

"

"great company. Timely matter, got me drivers to xp very quickly. Good price."

"After a bad experience with a company in Cal.I was glad to find Ava direct, they built me a beautiful machine that really works and there support has been really excellent. Every aspect has been great. If you want a custom built rig with components that you pick out at really conservatant prices, look no farther you cant do any better , there great. Jerry Walker"

"This is a fantastic company I would recommend to friends and family for several reasons.

The first is the price. I purchased a laptop from the company and the price was excellent. A couple of hundred less than other places online that I looked at.

The second is that everything is highly customizable on their webpage. Types of memory, hard drives, motherboards, everything is listed not only by specs but by company as well. This is an amazing feature! You don't find something like this often. You can always be sure you're getting exactly the parts you want in the system from exactly the company you want them from. Fantastic!

Finally, the staff at AVA Direct is very knowledgeable and helpful. There was an issue with the order that I knew about but they contacted me anyway just to make sure what I wanted was correct.

The company provides a 'burn in' time for their systems which is extremely helpful, it can help you avoid those dud parts that we've all had to deal with.

All in all this is a fantastic company and I wish I'd found them years ago. I'll shortly be purchasing a desktop from them and will no doubt continue to use them for years yet!"

"I ordered a barebones laptop from AVA Direct. Had to confirm my order by phone which is understandable. The product arrived within a few days in perfect condition. I received technical help with the product as needed. I would recommend this company in heart beat to friends and family. I found the prices for the barebones laptops quite reasonable."

"As I needed strong but mobile workstation I was searching internet for custom made laptops that will have highest quality components and be able to meet my requirements for tough calculations as well for leisure things like high quality RTS games.
At first, I was thinking to order laptop workstation from Pro Star (CA) and started asking for details related to some components. They were very sluggish and on some emails even never answered, so I decided to seek better companies. That way I found AVA Direct and was surprised by better prices they offered. Another thing that attract me to them was amazing and prompt response to all my questions about details for some components. Another thing that I liked was thorough testing of custom built laptop, what ensures high quality of product as well service. I decided to make my order and from that point I was informed about progress of making my laptop. They shipped it in 3 weeks and as soon as I got it, I installed Vista Ultimate 64 bit I had (another cool option, to buy laptop without OS). Everything worked amazingly fast and whatever I tested by now simply flied on my new laptop. As a scientist I tried also few iterative quantum mechanical calculations simply to see how it will work tasks related to lots of math and worked perfectly fast. I started thorough testing of all components and by now all works smooth, most of all thanks for quality control and testing before shipping.
AVA Direct is company that sold me really good laptop that meets my needs and I am fully satisfied. They also time to time email me to check if laptop works fine and make sure I'm fully satisfied what in these days rarely any company does.
I highly recommend AVA Direct as choice No 1 and as a guarantee for full satisfaction.

Sasha K."

"Ordered a custom desktop for home use and gaming. Had done a ton of research for about three years prior to purchasing. Went with AVA based on their customer service rep, customization options, and reasonable prices. Ordered on 09/02/2008. Two weeks to build and test and a week to ship, as expected. You can't expect faster for this level of customization. AVA responded very promptly to any questions I had during the build and were very helpful. Here are my specs:

-ANTEC, Performance One P182 Case
-BFG TECH, BFGR800WPSU 800W Power Supply
-GIGABYTE, GA-EP45-DS3R, Intel® P45 Motherboard
-INTEL, Core™ 2 Duo E8400 Dual-Core Processor
-ARCTIC COOLING, Freezer 7 Pro Quiet CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink
-CORSAIR, 2GB (2 x 1GB) XMS2 Xtreme PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL4 (4-4-4-12) 2.1V SDRAM 240-pin DIMM, Non-ECC, w/ Heat Spreader
-eVGA, e-GeForce® 9800 GTX+ GPU
-HITACHI, 500GB Deskstar® T7K500, SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200-RPM, 16MB cache HDD
-SONY, CRX320EE Black 52x32x52-16A DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive, EIDE/ATAPI, OEM
-SAMSUNG, Super-WriteMaster™ SH-S223 Black 22x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA
-Windows XP Home Edition w/ SP3

Computer was packaged well, very secure, and ran well out-of-the-box. Also, fantastic wiring control. Have had a few problems with some games, but this appears to be a driver problem with nVidia. I also added two more GB's of RAM after I received the computer.

Let me tell everyone about AVA's customer service. When I started having video card problems, I did a lot of checking on forums and the internet trying to solve the problem. However, I also sent an e-mail to AVA asking if they had seen conflicts between my motherboard, memory, and nVidia video cards. Chris responded very quickly and has not only kept in constant contact regarding my problem, but is forwarding our conversations to eVga to help me solve the problem, which is not even related to the quality build I received. I am VERY impressed with AVA Direct and would be happy to recommend them to anyone. I will DEFINITELY buy again from them in the future. Previously had an HP laptop, and a Cyberpower PC (years ago) and have never seen such a high level of customer service and responsiveness in a company. Obviously, I am impressed. "

"Ok Folks - Heres the real deal!

If you want a super high end system this firm has the intellectual property to make it happen.

I am somewhat of a meticulous enthusiast that is fortunate to have the resources to have any firm build me an exceptional gaming machine.

After well over 50 seperate configurations - I arrived at what, for me, has been an exceptionally stable, dual boot 64 bit build.

The superb techs that can stabilize the system outlined below are a rare breed in a society that aspires to mediocrity.

I would not even consider for a second, anyone but AVA Direct on my next 2009 build.

Joe Mundy, at AVA - a multitasking maniac that runs on 16 cores and is as stable as my system, insured every component would be not only the best obtainable, but would simply work uniformly in the configuration - period.

As with any system that pushes the envelope - we had a few issues that needed to be ammended during a brutal burn in.

The firms honesty in sharing what they had to do to correct the issues speaks volumes about integrity and if it was not for this rigourous quality control - well you, may not be in as a good a place as me.

So am I happy - Very much so and I can endorse in all enthusiast circles to buy their products!

Have no fear - they are a great company.

Cordially,

Peter G

Mooresville, NC

NZXT, Khaos Black Full Tower Case

Processor:
Overclocked INTEL, Core™ 2 Quad Q9550 Quad-Core 2.83GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 12MB (2 x 6MB) L2

Motherboard:
ASUS, Striker II Extreme, LGA775, nForce 790i Ultra SLI, 1600MHz FSB, DDR3-2000

Video Card:
SLI XFX, GeForce® GTX 280, GTX 280 602MHz, 1GB DDR3 2210MHz

Memory:
OCZ, 4GB (2 x 2GB) Platinum EB Edition PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL (7-6-6-24)

Hard Drive:
SAMSUNG, 1TB SpinPoint F1, SATA 3 Gb/s, 7200-RPM, 32MB Cache

Optical Drive:
LG ELECTRONICS, GGC-H20L Black 6x/8x/24x BD/DVD±RW/CD-RW Blu-ray Disc™ HD DVD-ROM™ Combo Drive

SAMSUNG, Super-WriteMaster™ SH-S203N Black 20x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner w/ LightScribe

Cooling:
AVADIRECT, Premium 1xCPU Liquid Cooling Kit, Installed

Power Supply:
SILVERSTONE, Decathlon DA1200 Modular Power Supply, 1200W

Operating System:
MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit Edition w/ SP1

MICROSOFT, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition w/ SP2c

Other Options:
CUSTOM WIRING, Spiral Wrap Wire Management with Round Cables, Black


System and memory benchmarks performed with Everest Ultimate Edition

Video card performance benchmarks performed with 3DMark 2006 Professional

"

"After placing my order, the computer was built and shipped in just a few weeks. Unfortunately, upon unpacking the computer, I found that the single air-pillow used to protect the internal components had been punctured allowing the graphics card to break off the PCIe locking lever and pop out of the slot, damaging the motherboard and bending the GPU's mounting bracket as it bounced around. The power supply had bent the case where it attaches and an exhaust fan had damaged the fins of the CPU Cooler. The system had obviously been subjected to severe shock while in transit.

I contacted AVADirect and they immediately provided an RMA and return shipping label.

The computer was repaired and returned in a timely manner.

AVADirect is highly motivated to make sure that you are satisfied with your purchase.
"

"I worked for a military defense contractor and AVA Direct was recommended to me by one of my co-workers. They build systems for my company. I needed a new gaming computer for my flight simulator and looked at several gaming pc companies but selected AVA Direct because of the large selection of components. Also, they were very helpful in answering pre-sales questions regarding compatibility. The system was built in a timely manner as promised. The system shipped in a secure packaging and I received it with no damage. I plugged it in and have had no problems. Due to a my fault I had to RMA the memory because I needed a different configuration but they were very helpful with the return process. I would definitely recommend AVADirect to friends, family and anyone else that is in need of a new gaming computer. Also, I saved myself a bundle by not dealing with some of the other competitors."

"I am going to repeat what another customer wrote (with some modification) because my experience was almost identical:
Joe Mundy has been wonderful to deal with. I made my computer dual-bootable (vista/xp pro) after I received it from AVA-Direct and it is working fine so far. I made my purchase from AVA-Direct because of the high rating on reselleratings.com
I have not one negative thing to say about AVA-Direct (and I have interacted with them numerous times). They have been courteous, professional and have responded quickly. Thank you, AVA-Direct.
Debbi Owen
Office Manager
Eastview Christian Church"

"I decided to order a custom Core™2 DDR2 Performance Series System desktop after much research. This system with its Quad core and 4GB DDR is blazing fast compared to my 4-year-old Dell Dimension 8300. It boots up in a matter of seconds and is ready to start working for me almost immediately. I have installed many software applications on this system since I got it and has not slowed down one bit. I mainly ordered it for video rendering and it is about 4x as fast as my old computer. In addition to video rendering I can run other programs concurrently with little or no performance degradation. My old computer with its Pentium 4 would not be able to handle that kind of resource demand very well. Overall, I am very pleased with my system and would highly recommend AVA Direct to anyone."