"This was, by far, the best experience I have had in buying a computer. I have purchased about 70 different machines from at least seven 8 different vendors and AVADirect has been the best. All my future buying will be done through them.

Communication was excellent and very personalized. The build and testing was quick, and the packaging was superb."

"Prelude: I used to really enjoy building my own systems -- selecting and assembling the components, loading the OS, debugging and tweaking... debugging some more. Sometimes there were conflicts that were difficult to resolve but that just added to the challenge and enjoyment. Maybe I'm showing my age, but for me, the thrill of bringing a box to life is gone.

Now, I just want to unpack it, plug it in and have it work.

Recently I resigned myself to the fact that I'd squeezed all the life out of my 2005 build that I could, so I began to review potential system-builder candidates. I eventually narrowed my choices to two: Puget Systems and AVA Direct. AVA won out for two reasons, the first of which was price -- they simply offered more for the money. Second, my wife is a network manager in a small office and about three years ago she began the migration from Dell to AVA. She has been quite pleased with the quality of the equipment and the level of service provided by AVA. That was good enough for me.

To make a long story short, I ordered a well equipped, powerful machine from AVA to do professional image editing and I am very happy with my purchase. The order process is a little intimidating at first due to the vast number of component choices available, especially if you've been out of the hardware loop for awhile. However, AVA's staff is able and willing to offer guidance once they understand your intended use and budget.

The total time from order to ship was a little longer than I expected (hence only 4 stars for that aspect), but I did specify at least one non-stock item that caused part of the delay. AVA also takes the time to thoroughly test (or burn in) each system before it leaves their facility. The goods were double boxed in ample packing and survived the trip to my door without issue. The icing on the cake is a good standard warranty -- something a DIY builder has to do without.

I highly recommend AVA Direct."

"AVADirect is, in my mind, the best place to get a custom computer. I compared prices to some other custom computer companies (iBuyPower, Alienware, OriginPC, XoticPC, FrozenCPU, Falcon) and found their prices and customization options to be the lowest and broadest, respectively. The hard drive I ordered turned out to be out of stock, so they upgraded it to the next model up for free. The shipping is just a bit on the slow side, but that is to be expected when having a custom laptop built, and it was still much faster than Alienware. Overall AVADirect would be my recommendation to anybody looking to have a custom computer built. Their site is easy to navigate and use, the product and customization options are excellent, their prices are low, and their customer service is top notch. Easily five stars overall."

"I am very satisfied to have ordered from AVA. Although the lead times, were quite long, doubt their competitors could do any better because of my fairly customized order: overclock this, don't do that, don't install this. They did it all.

I am impressed by the prompt response time of the technical and sales staff, covering my concerns for issues for overclocking heat issues and the incompatibilities with the new Windows 8. My previous experience with Ibuypower for my previous system was less than desirable. I shopped around looked found the following features of the competitors:

Digital Storm: Did not like their customization, choice of cases or price, e.g I believe they didn't let me not install an OS to keep the price down.
Ibuypower: bad experience in the past, poor quality (for the same price I paid at AVA)
Cyberpower: associated with ibuypower
Falcon Northwest: Seems very high-end and a competent bunch but Expensive!

Thank you for a great system, I will be sure to recommend AVA Direct to my friends and purchase my future system from you."

"My experience with AVA was very positive. PC was shipped within the timeframe given to me. I have not had any problems whatsoever. I would recommend AVA to my friends."

"The website is easy to use to create your computer. After the initial checkout, I was immediately contacted by an employee that helped me with the order process. The service is great and the product is even better. My computer shipped faster than expected and arrived without a scratch. The machine is as ordered and is an amazing machine built under the exact specs I wanted, and all for a fair price. The computer is blazing fast and I could have gone faster if I wanted to, it is very well built and has not had any problems. I would recommend their services and products to anybody."

"I had a custom made laptop built by AVA. You'll see I gave the over all experience 4 stars and not 5. The machine, the shipping, the price, and the service people we all wonderful. Top notch and I am very delighted with my laptop. I took one star away for some lacking in the web site area. In particular the credit card process seems outdated. You have to fax in a sheet to verify you are who you are even after you put your card info in at the web site and submitted your payment. Added a few days to the order process. The options for my laptop seemed a little to limited as well. I did not have the choice of a sturdier casing or a light up key board. I suggested these items be placed on the "menu" in a survey they asked me to fill out for them. We'll see how that goes. When, not if I build a new laptop, I will do so with AVA Direct. They could polish somethings to make a better experience for their customers, but all in all, the price, people, shipping and final product are top of the line. "

"AVADirect was one of my favorite online buying experiences. Past systems were purchased through Dell, Falcon Northwest, Puget Systems, and Digital Storm. I had also been considering a system from Cyberpower, which was priced about $300 less than the AVADirect offering.

Overall, my experience with AVADirect was very positive. The ordering process online was very easy. The rep I worked with, Joseph Mundy, called to go over a few suggestions that he had. This was the best part of the process, as he dissuaded me from paying extra for the soundproofing options and instead directed me to a more practical videocard and case than the ones I had chosen. All of his suggestions have panned out as the system is whisper quiet and meets all my needs, and he saved me money in the process.

One thing that was kind of nice was the Windows was already installed and activated and shortcuts already placed on the desktop. Not exactly the way I would have done it, but it made the first boot process incredibly quick.

A couple of things that knocked the rating down by a star:

1. I ordered the system on a Wednesday morning and received confirmation that it was being processed. A full two days later, I received an email from the company requiring that I fill out and fax back a credit card authorization form, as they required this for orders over $1000. This was the first I had heard of this and by the time I was able to send back the form, they had closed for the day. So, my order really didn't start the processing until the next Monday, a full 5 days after the order was placed. I felt this process could have been quicker than 48 hours to send me that required document.

2. The packing, while adequate, uses those darn Styrofoam peanuts. I've never seen so many of those in a single box; I'm still finding bits on my carpet! There are more secure ways to pack contents without all of the peanuts.

3. The warning on the box about the need to open up the case first should have been more prominent. It was on white paper and taped upside down to the box, and I can see how someone who doesn't order a lot of systems wouldn't know to open the case to remove the injectable foam that was covering the heatsink and video card.

However, these minor quibbles aside, the system is exactly what I expected, and I would not hesitate to order from them in the future."

"I have had my new system for two weeks and I'm very pleased with it.  My goals were a quiet, relatively powerful system that could run CentOS rather than Windows. The system I ordered was based on a core i5 with 16 GB of memory and two 1 TB drives that I would mirror with Linux CentOS software.

I was attracted to AVA Direct because they were willing to install CentOS.  When I investigated a little further I discovered that I could buy just what I needed rather than what Dell/HP/Lenovo packaged.  I wanted a Core i5 system with 16 GB memory and 1 TB mirrored drives.  With the big guys upgrading memory is very expensive.  Taking the default and replacing it in the after market was less expensive, but still cost time and money.  I ran into the same sort of problems configuring the two 1 TB drives.

With AVA Direct, I could buy what I wanted without having to go to the after market to replace brand new components.  There was also the joy of not having to buy Windows.  All told, the AVA system I configured cost less than a similar system from Dell.  I was surprised and pleased.

The ordering process showed that there were some gaps in my PC knowledge.  I had never selected a case, but a little web research said that the Fractal R4 would be a good fit.  I was, however, at a loss when it came time to choose a motherboard and power supply.  Jmundy and Vedran Ikonic helped with those decisions.

I am very pleased with the upgrade.  The most demanding applications that I run are Virtual Machines.  The faster processor and the additional memory make them much more responsive.  The XP VMs are some faster, but the Vista and Windows 7 VMs are much quicker.

All told the machine is a very good fit. The upgrade from a Q6600 cpu and 6 GB of memory has been a delight. The system is so quiet I now notice all the other systems in the office.

There are two areas where I might have made a different decision now that I know more: video and SSDs.

The Intel 2500 video works, but sometimes it is clumsy. I have dual 23” displays. When I drag a window from one screen to the other the image is distorted during the dragging operation. Everything seems to work fine otherwise. There is also a long standing Linux bug which causes the screen to lock up for a few seconds. For you Linux fans it is referred to as i915_error_state. Obviously it affects more than the i915 chip. I can live with both problems and there is a readily available solution, so I'm content to leave things as they are.

Because of a laptop failure, I ended up with an SSD sitting around. After I installed CentOS to the mirrored hard drives, I went back and installed the OS to the SSD. There is a fair amount of nit picking detail to configure Linux for SSDs, but it was mostly a research problem. Trim needs to be working and Write Amplification minimized. The work was worthwhile. The system boots considerably faster and applications start much, much faster. In my case, however, my most demanding application is running VMs. The Virtual Disks on the Virtual Machines are not good candidates for SSDs. I'm left with the impression that the SSD was a desirable upgrade, but not a clear benefit considering the $100 cost and the extra work to configure it.

I heartily recommend AVA Direct for those who need something a little out of the ordinary. The selections available and the first rate help make this the first place I'll look the next time I buy."

"I recieved a custom gaming PC 8 months ago and would buy from avadirect again. The PC worked perfectly right out of the box and I have been able to add additional hard drives and a sata raid card without any problems. the system works great for games (SWTOR, Diablo 3, Planetside 2) and can run at the highest graphic settings without lag. I also use it with professional statistical packages (SPSS) on large datasets which caused other systems to slow to a crawl, but it continues to run fast and without problems. I highly reccomend the specific system and plan on replacing my old laptop with an avadirect system. "

"Had great feedback to some questions concerning my custom computer build. Also, got a good recommendation on watercooling and SSD options for my build. Computer build wiring was very neat and well secured. The computer runs much quieter than I expected. Customer Service responded promptly to my email inquiries.

Great Job!"

"Our experience with AVA Computers was a realy nice one. The hardware arrived fully assembled and so far no problems at all with it.
Costumer service was good all the time I was on the phone with them.
I appreciate they getting a specific server I needed that wasn't listed on their website. They contacted Supermicro for me and got the server with no issues. Thanks a lot!"

"This is my third personal machine from AVADirect and I've purchased ~five systems for laboratory use. The staff is knowledgeable and are willing to work with you on custom details (I wanted to use my own fans, SSDs, etc). The builds have been very clean with good cable management. I recommend AVADirect and will buy from them again. "

"Excellent customer service! Contacting them is simple and easy, you might have to wait a few days before getting a response, but nothing that's unreasonable and the associates are always friendly and precise. I definitely recommend getting the extended warranty. My harddrive went bad (through no fault of AVADirect) before my 3 year warranty expired, I dropped them a note about it, and they replaced it no questions asked. "

"I have ordered clevo based laptops for my last three laptops. avadirect by far had the most options of parts for me to choose from and the lowest prices that I could find for my configuration. The ordering process has been the smoothest out of the three occasions. The only thing I wish they would bold accounting fee form on the e-mail, as most people probably do not read their invoices to the bottom of the page. Other than that, I am very pleased with the ordering process. For the laptop itself, it felt like a solidly built laptop. On the tech support aspect of the house, I felt avadirect was a bit unfamiliar with the nvidia optimus technology, as I had to figure how to turn it off because the tech support did not know how. "