Date:
Thursday , September 22, 2005
Author:
Chris Morley
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Velocity Micro Gamer's Edge 1500 Evaluation

Velocity Micro is back in the saddle with a mainstream gaming unit that's billed as "the perfect gaming system designed for serious gamers on a $1500 budget." We'll see if Velocity Micro took our past criticisms to heart and delivered a killer gaming rig.

continued...

Part I - Product Overview

It's A Question Of Options, Really

Navigating Velocity Micro's website was very easy. It only takes two clicks to get the configurator for the Gamer's Edge 1500. For the Gamer’s Edge 1500, Velocity Micro has chosen a capable default configuration, but it's the upgradeability of the system that really grabs our attention.

Instead of trying to minimize costs by going with a socket 754 processor and AGP video card (there are some OEMs still doing this), Velocity Micro has created a platform that could very well house the fastest AMD X2 processor and 7800 GTX video cards in SLI with no further changes to the configuration. I believe that this is a feature that many people overlook, and we believe it should be emphasized here. Few people want to find out that they got a great deal on a computer only to realize later that it isn't keeping up with the times, while if they had only spent a little more, they could have had a PC that could grow and change with their needs.

Currently, Velocity Micro gives you the choice of AMD Athlon 64 processors up to 4000+ (no X2 here, sorry), and up to two 7800 GTX video cards in SLI mode. Furthermore, you can customize up to 2GB of low latency (which translates to a minor improvement in performance), dual channel DDR memory, and up to three hard drives -- including Western Digital 74GB 10,000rpm hard drives -- in RAID 0.

Velocity Micro does a great job of offering quality components without inundating the consumer with a plethora of overly similar or useless choices. Every upgrade option seems to be intelligently thought out, including options for a second gigabit network controller, WI-FI, routers, and other peripherals and components that a consumer would want to purchase all at once without having to make a separate trip to a brick and mortar retail store.

One thing I would like to see Velocity Micro offer, and something we'll talk about later, is an option for a 'quiet computing' package. One of the complaints in our ProMagix DCX evaluation was that the machine was quite loud. Perhaps offering an option for Panaflow or other quiet fans would reach out to more people who don't like to hear their computer all day long.

Pulling The Trigger

The cool thing about configuring a system with Velocity Micro is that they boldly state the estimated shipping date. With our Gamer's Edge 1500, we were excited to see that there was a very quick turnaround on ordering a system and having it shipped out to us. Did we mention that ground shipping was free? While we aren't a big fan of ground shipping, OEMs that have custom made boxes and foam inserts are likely to have very good success with ground shipping and it's the cheapest way to get a box from one place to another. Velocity Micro definitely falls into this category, as evidenced in our last review.

Velocity Micro sends an email update every time something changes in your order. We received an email upon order submission, confirmation that our order was charged, notification that the system was being built, notification that the system was done and has been forwarded to shipping, a tracking number, and lastly, a final invoice. I would prefer more communication than less, and Velocity Micro definitely kept me happy during the entire process. It should be noted that it took them 5 days to process and build the machine, and we received it 6 days after that. That's excellent turnaround. If we had chosen overnight shipping, we would have had the machine four days after we submitted our order.

Overall, ordering from Velocity Micro is a cinch, communications from them are informative and complete, and I was very impressed with the entire experience. In my book, if I can make up my mind on a product, find all the information I need, and never need to a) call the company or b) receive a call from a company unless I want to, that means that said company has an excellent e-commerce implementation.