AVADirect Quiet X79 Gaming PC

AVADirect Quiet X79 Gaming PC. The AVADirect Quiet X79 Gaming PC is whisper quiet and powerful enough to let you play with the big dogs. Even with six-core processing, competitive gaming graphics, and room for plenty of upgrades, the Quiet X79 Gaming PC brings it all together for a lot less than top-flight gaming rigs. Powerful components. Stylish design. Runs nearly silent while keeping everything cool. Good included storage options. Can't keep up with multi-GPU gaming rigs.

When you're shopping for a serious gaming desktop, you tend to snag the most powerful machine when you abandon all monetary constraints. But it doesn't have to be that way. Although the AVADirect Quiet X79 Gaming PC will never be confused with a budget system, this mid-size rig has undeniable gaming chops and will cost you less than competing systems. Its powerful processor and smart storage arrangement are enough to chew through any processing task, and its high-end video card ratchets up the system's gaming performance to a competitive level. You can find more powerful gaming desktops, but this one is a solid choice if you don't want your PC to take over your room or kill your budget.

Design and Features
AVADirect has used as the case for the Quiet X79 Gaming PC a white version of the NZXT H2, which sports accents of a bare metal panel on the front tower door and blue and white glowing LEDs. It's a look similar to that of the Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960, but cleaner—and much more sedate than the flame paint-job on the iBuypower Chimera 4-V1.

On the top panel you'll find a power button, three USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, headphone and microphone jacks, and a three-speed fan controller. A magnetic plastic cover hides the top fan vent, but can be easily adjusted or removed to improve airflow. A snapping cover also serves as a lid for a SATA-equipped hot-swappable drive bay.

On the front of the tower you'll find a Blu-ray (BD-RE) optical drive, and a 65-in-1 card reader that accommodates every major media card format, including SD/MMC, microSD, CF/MD, MS/Pro/Duo, and xD, plus another USB 2.0 port thrown in for good measure. On the back of the tower you'll find scads of connections, with six USB 2.0 ports (one of which is occupied by a Bluetooth receiver), four USB 3.0 ports, a USB BIOS flashback port, and two USB/eSATA combination ports. The Gigabit Ethernet port is your only networking option, as the Silent Gaming PC has no Wi-Fi. Display outputs include two DVI, one HDMI, and one full-size DisplayPort. There are also several audio outputs, with ports for S/PDIF and eight-channel analog audio.

Pull off the case's side panel (the thumbscrews make it easy) and you'll find that the Quiet X79 Gaming PC is equipped with both a 120GB SSD (which serves as the OS drive) and a silent 2TB Western Digital hard drive (for storage). Plugged into the Asus P9X79 motherboard is a six-core Intel Core i7-3930K processor—the same model found in both the Chimera 4-V1 and the Velocity Micro Raptor Z90 (Intel Core i7-3930K)—equipped with a giant heat sink–fan unit to keep it cool, and an overclocked Asus video card based on the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 GPU. A quintet of whisper-quiet fans keep everything cool.

An 850-watt power supply provides more than enough juice for all of the Quiet X79 Gaming PC's components, and additional hardware if you choose to upgrade—and there are plenty of upgrade options available. Though the system comes equipped with 16GB of RAM, there are four open DIMM slots on the motherboard, which supports up to 64GB total RAM. You'll find four open PCI Express (PCIe) slots, though the two PCIe x1 slots are blocked by the bulky video card, and one open 5.25-inch drive bay; four SATA ports are also free.

Because this is a custom gaming rig, you'll find that the hard drive is immaculate, with the only software installed being Windows 7 Professional. The Quiet X79 Gaming PC also comes with AVADirect's Silver Warranty Package, a three-year warranty on parts and labor.

Posted in: Desktop