Well well well today after a month of waiting my Vadim arrived and ZOFMG (sorry wont happen again)
Now i know i can't really do a "proper" review since ive only had it one day but i think there's enough been said about Vadim's handy work so rather than a review i will just tell my how my time has been with this Beauty:)
I will start by telling you something that i believe sums up Vadim's dedication to there customers. I Got a call from the lovely and still heavily accented Dominique on Friday she told me my order was ready and would i be ok to accept it on Saturday. at this point i should state that i choose the best delivery option available which is a dedicated driver that mean's no chav throwing my £6000+ computer instead it means someone takes it from Vadim direct to me so there is no delivery man really. Same thing for really high end cars like Bentley's and Lambo's they are hand delivered.
Anyway back on point about 30-45 minutes later Dominique called me again to be honest i thought id pulled her with my charm but no such luck straight to business, she then told me that since ive been waiting so long they were gonna get it to me tonight so i would of had it about 7 or 8PM now i know of NO other company that does that but now here's where it takes a turn for the worst, I start jumping around then a little later i get another call form Vadim this time it was a guy his name was either adam/andy/adrian or dan (sorry dude was watching sopranos while talking to ya) and he tells me that the delivery woman broke down on the m40 i tell you god didnt want to me have this thing anyway she would deliver it on the next day and he apologized for messing me around which wasn't really anyones fault but a nice gesture.
So I wake up nice and early this morning (about 9:30) and wait a little then DING DONG its here i walk to the door and see 2 very nice women standing at my door then behind them is a Vaxuhall Estate with its entire back taken up by this monolithic Trunk.
So we get the thing into the front door and make small talk and offer drinks but she's busy so i let her and her friend go and then there is this feeling of "yay its finally here" but also "oh -CENSORED- i gotta get this up 3 flights of very long/steep stairs".
I at that moment had a brainwave why not unpack it were it is then just take the pc up by itself, thats what i did but it was still stupidly heavy.
Ok now this are not very good pictures but the only Decent camera i have is currently on tour in Afghan with my cousin in the Royal Marine's so i doubt ill ever get it back in 100% anyway on with the show.
As you can see with that amount of padding and protection plus the special driver i bet my pc barely moved if at all:) Now i must say ive seen good packing before but this is superb.
Next i took the V2100b box off and took a few shots of the top and my custom design cut plus i took a picture of a sticker i dunno why i was happy just enjoy
After that i opened the panels which to be honest was way more trouble than i expected the V2100b has a very very good but difficult way of taking off the side panels you see instead of sliding the pannels onto solid hook things the hooks are on a moving rail that locks in but since the only thing to pull on is the screw its not ideal if youve got big hands. Its not even really an issue but i wanna be honest and tell everything i loved and everything that kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
The internal bubble wrap packing is truely amazing i KNOW nothing moved an inch heres a few of the full wrapping and after i took a bit out:)
Now after sitting there drooling for 10 minutes at this amazing stupidly well built masterpiece i thought to my self what a part of the computer nobody every shows......the cables now i opted for the best cable management you can get from Vadim and it shows when i removed all the bubble wrap i was like "Dude were'd all the cables go" that was shortly after i had finished gawping over the huge swiftech pump:) Anyway this picture shows just how amazing these guys are at cable tidying i mean there are cables for miles yet there are incredibly neat and in place it really did just make me sit and stare at it....
So Now time for the money shots:) Dont worry i aint finished yet i still got some bad things to say but ill get to that after this lovely pics enjoy the retnal burning blue:)
Ok well first let me say this is amazing super fast and for having 14 fans is insanely quiet and i mean quiet it make's less noise than the 360 and less that the ps3 i dont really have a way to prove this you will just have to take my word for it.
Now onto the bad things, there arent many but more than i would of liked i would like to say this now tho i love Vadim i dont regret my purchase and im sure that my "issues" will get resolved asap.
First thing i noticed was that my t-balancer was just not working plain out giving no readings or nothing now like i said this is only a very small thing but still, the next is the overclocking i ran a 3dmark 06 and im aware this isnt very good on vista 64bit bit with this config i expected at least a "high end" score but what i got made me sad very very sad so i looked into this problem i went onto my overclocking notes and then compared them with my pc now this is were i get a little more than frustrated. I noticed that all the over setting matched but the cpu multiplier it was set at 9 instead of the reported 12 ok so i bump it back up now im getting those 20000+ Scores but here's my "issue" i know it was just a case of knocking upa multiplier and i know that vadim themselves say there cunstomers must have some prior computing know how but i paid for overclocking and when it arrived it wasnt done also ive got no idea if my cards are overclocked as i cant get riva tuner to work just to see the speeds.
Now if you took your car to the garage paid for a tune up the got it home and it either wast done or wasnt done fully would you let it slide....i think not. I know this sounds kinda negative but i told you from the start honesty is what your gonna get did this make me feel or doubt Vadim in anyway nope but for over 6 grand you kinda expext certain things and i have to say vadim delivered about 98% perfection i belive they can still improve but its only the small things which although mean alot its not the end of the world.
So to sum it all up i am over the firggin moon this is hands down the best PC i or anyone i know has ever owned as i type this now its like lan party here, a bunch of the guys came to check it out and i can say vadim will be getting some new customer very soon
Now onto all the juicy bits you wanna know...Crysis 1680x1050 Everything maxed except AA as i dont make any difference at that res and i get a minimum of 45 fps its still a piece of untuned crap but this beast chews it up same with cod4 but in that one my fps really is stupidly off the charts also in 3dmar 06 my fps sits more in the 100's than double digits and all this on vista 64bit, id also like to add i have not had 1 crash or BSOD stable as a rock at 4.ghz:)
So in closing i would like to say that even tho i have only spent 1 day with my new vadim its a day i will never forget this pc is truely superb the build quality is top notch the performance would make a supercomputer cry and all this backed up with Vadims amazing customer support you cant go wrong.....you know what they say "once you go Vadim you never go back"
quick reminder of my specs
1 x Lian-Li V2100B Plus Black CASE (NO PSU)
1 x Precise Machine-Cut Flames for meshing
1 x Complex Custom Precise Machine-Cut Window
1 x Blue-LED fans
1 x Supreme Cable Management and UV Modding - Blue
1 x LiquoCool Antarctic TXX (CPU+2xChipset+2VGA+2xMosfets)
1 x Enermax Galaxy Modular DXX 1000W PSU
1 x Asus Striker II Formula 780i SLI (nVidia 780i - 1333 FSB Penryn)
1 x Intel Core 2 Quad QX9650 Extreme Retail (4x3.00GHz 1333FSB 12Mb)
1 x OCZ DDR2-1200 2x1024MB FlexXLC Edition Dual Channel Kit
1 x OCZ DDR2-1150 2x1024MB FlexXLC Edition Dual Channel Kit
2 x 150Gb Raptor 10000 16mb E-SATA
1 x 1000Gb (1Tb) Hitachi Desktar7200 32mb E-SATA
2 x BFG Nvidia 8800GTS New OC 512Mb PCIe HDCP
1 x SONY-NEC Optiarc AD-7173A 18x DVDRW Black OEM
1 x Creative 7.1 X-FI ExtremeGamer Fatal1ty
1 x X-Image on 2.5" USB 120Gb HD and Vista optimisation
1 x Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit DVD OEM
1 x Extreme Overclocking (10-50% - CPU/Memory/VGA) (NOT RECOMMENDED)
1 x Standard Build (5-15 working days)
1 x Deluxe 3 Year Collect and Return-Onsite Warranty
1 x Aluminium Custom Trunk (Full Towers - 80x80x40)
1 x Vadim Computers Baseball T-Shirt (XL)
I would to personally thank Adrian my builder, Dominique who i spoke to about the panel cutting and all the staff at Vadim:)
*update*
After spending more time with my Vadim i can only say im more in love with it it just some how keeps amazing me so i thought i would write a little about the TXX Water cooling system.
Honestly for the size/complexity of this cooling system i imagined alot of noise but honestly i dont even hear the 2 pumps.
The first pump the big Swiftech powerhouse and by big i mean looks like it would be powerfull enough to pump a swimming pool:) So like i was saying there is no noise at all, now the second pump is a pump/res im guessing it is also Swiftech that also makes no noise and is also kinda cool i dunno why it just is maybe its the plexi top so you can see the liquid:)
The first pump powers loop 1 which consists of (not in order) 1quad rad/cpu/NB/dual rad/2x GPU. Now ive gotta say this is truely an engineered loop as a no point does it ever pass more than 2 things like for insatnce once its cooled the cpu and NB i head off to the dual rad which removes all that heat so you hit the gpu's with nice ice cold liquid.
So thats the techy part done now for the looks part, ive seen many watercooled rigs in my time im only 20 so not too much time granted but what ive learned is this. A watercooling system either looks stunning or crap there is no middle ground, its either beautifull or just a mess of tubes. Now Vadim being the wizards of computer building have managed to take what most people would think is a nice looking WC system and turn it into a masterpiece i mean seriously everything flows(no pun intended) so well and sometimes i just sit and stare at it i know that may sound kinda weird but it really is that amazing i just enjoy looking at it.
Now my point of all this is that if you pick the TXX antarctic WC from vadim you will know its not cheap but take it from its worth every last single penny
Also my thanks go out to Dominique who just sent me a very very nice pic of my Vadim so enjoy:)
Last edited by Draven on Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:44 am; edited 1 time in total
thats weird about the overclocking on the machine...must be a simple reason for it...as for checking the cards you could always download Everest ultimate for your new beast. It shows everythink you could think off regarding the settings of your system.
Man your making me wanna get a Vadim just to see the delivery Gals....
Nice review I just love honest people...honestly......are you gonna join us for some tf2 fraggin???
I think Crysis was just invented to kill pc's around the world.....It crashed mine today ..
I think you'll find that Vadim disconnect the t-balancer once it is setup with the correct settings. It's still working but you can't get to it using the software.
Now I know why Adrian has been so busy lately ....
Draven That was a fantastic read, I really enjoyed it! made me remember my delivery. I like your pattern cut out on the side, very nice. I'm hoping to have this one if they can do it...
Definatley agree with Els, I think Vincent has mentioned this on a couple of occasions. Re Benchmarks and other niggles, your bound to get teething troubles and this time next week all will be forgotten. Can you imagine what computer lovers and the young teens would do for a machine like that. I too like your honesty, at that price however loyal you are to a firm they want to no if theres anything wrong so it doesnt happen again.
Well done, I really am happy for you. Next bring on Els's
As for the t-balancer its definatly working after a few hours of crysis fans kicked up a little so as Els said it is working just cant access the software part no biggy really.
Yes wolf i do have 2 different types of ram long story short one of my 1200 sets died the day before and since thye no longer make th 1200 they put me the 1150 there is no "penalty" with this what i mean is it doesn't effect anything as we all know any ddr2 ram above 800 is just factory overclocked and since i was getting overclocked anyway made no real problem:)
I really like that design fruim they might be able to do it but it will have to modified. heres is the orginal picture i sent to vadim for my cut so you can see the little changes they had to make
Yes i will be joining you guys for some serious TF2 Fraggin soon as my orange box arrives:)
Still can't believe ive got that bad boy i mean i woke up this morning and im normally a happy person but i was grinning from ear to ear i think i scared me cats
Wow, what a machine, I bet your are so glad.
Glad it is all working fine .
That is one heck of a beast though, fully lit up, you wouldn't need any other lights on in the room, to be able to see your keyboard .
I liked the line about the chav
..
Next bring on Els's 
