Specifications:

Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40Ghz (8MB Cache)     Rs. 28,500/- Motherboard: GA-Z77-D3H                                                          Rs. 15,500/- GIGA BYTE Liquid Cooling System 3D Mercury Pro Black Aluminum ATX Full                                    Rs. 28,000/- Tower 3D Galaxy Series Blue Eyes RAM: CORSAIR 8GB RAM DDRIII Desktop with Heat Sink (Vengeance)   Rs. 6,500/- Graphics Card: HD-7970 3072MB GDDR5 384/bit DVI-I/HDMI/Mini Display Port                                                    Rs. 56,500/- DVD (RW) Sony DVD Writer AD-7260S SATA                         Rs. 2,000/- Power Supply: 900 PSU Epsilon 80 Plus                                    Rs. 9,000/- HDD: Seagate 500 GB SATA HDD 3.5"                                          Rs. 7,500/- K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard                                                    Rs. 4,800/- Mouse: G500 Gaming Grade Laser Mouse                                 Rs. 7,000/-

Total cost (without monitor and Windows)              Rs. 1,65,300/-

I was very excited to hear that I’d be getting a ‘gaming machine’ for review. At first I didn’t exactly know if I should expect a console or a computer. As it turned out, a couple of days later, there was this massive computer casing which looked like something out of a sci-fi movie sitting at my office. My initial thought was if I press the power button will it fly or take me back in time?

It didn’t really do either; but defiantly looked the part. There is a water cooling system that has a speed control knob placed on top of the front panel, with a rotary display of the speed at which the coolant is flowing. All of it lights up neon blue on startup: the power supply, the rotary display and the pipes through which the coolant flows through that are visible from the left side of the casing. Visually the only thing I do not like about it is this chrome-finished five spoke wheel made of plastic which doesn’t move or do anything on top of the machine. That being said, the machine looks great.

I had already gone through the specification list and knew that this machine was going to be a lot of fun. So, in the naivety of my over-excitement, I had bought a few new titles to play and test out. When I put the first game DVD in the drive, much to my surprise, I couldn’t access it. I figured there must be something wrong with the game so I put in another one and then another one after – but to no avail. I then called the suppliers and told them about my issue. I told them I think it must be a problem with the operating system (OS) or the combo drive and they said they would send someone and have it fixed the same day. Three days and two trips later they told me it’s a problem with the OS and they would send the machine back the next day after resolving the issue.

A week later the machine arrived and they went out of their way to install a couple of games for us which was very thoughtful I suppose. When I started playing the first game I saw (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2), it loaded up very quickly and the opening montage was very nice, but since I already play it at home on a PS3 I wanted to quickly get to the game play so I skipped it and went on to the main menu. When the game started, I felt like I was unable to communicate with the game seamlessly and I could not figure out if it was the refresh rate or latency or hardware acceleration, so I stopped the game. After going over all the hardware and software settings from the control panel, the BIOS and the in-game settings, I returned to the game – only to find out that the problem still existed. I then played another game, followed by a third, only to face the same problem several times over.

So I gave up on it and told my friends who sent the machine that it is great for using Microsoft Office and perhaps Adobe Photoshop but that’s the end of it. Games and this machine were not getting along at all. When they got back to me another week later, they told me that the graphics card which was supposed to be fantastic was actually “EOL”. Hearing that I chuckled unintentionally after which he elaborated and told me that EOL is actually an acronym for end of life.

So a couple of days ago they brought back an upgraded machine. About eight weeks later, here I am writing my review. The machine looks the same but works much better.

Processor 64-bit computing on Intel architecture requires a computer system with a processor, chipset, BIOS, operating system, device drivers and applications enabled for Intel 64-bit architecture. Processors will not operate (including 32-bit operation) without an Intel 64-bit architecture-enabled BIOS. Performance will vary depending on your hardware and software configurations.