My computer had been on its death bed for some time, and it became obvious that I would need to either replace it soon, or get used to an abacus. I knew that I didn’t want to pay some company like Dell or Alienware loads of extra money to build a machine that I could build myself for cheaper, but I also knew that I wasn’t too interested in investing the time and effort to build one of my own. Luckily, I managed to find a happy compromise: I had TilDeath build a machine for me.
I didn’t know TilDeath from the game, and the thought of handing over a decent amount of money to someone I’d only heard of through a bulletin board would normally give me pause (think “Voss”). My concerns were erased when I found that two people I know and highly respect, Delirium and Hlbly, had both purchased machines from him and were totally satisfied. Their testimony convinced me to give TilDeath a call.
I asked Hlbly for TilDeath’s number, and gave him a call that night. I told him how much I was looking to spend, what I was looking to do with the machine, and we worked out a deal.
He answered all my questions, and even spent a good amount of time answering non-related technical questions for an issue I was having. I felt like I was having a friend build it and not an agent.
He asked me not to disclose the price, because the cost of parts can fluctuate several times per week, but I will say I found it completely reasonable. It was basically cost of parts + shipping + an extremely reasonable labor fee. The small amount of money I paid him in labor was WELL worth the amount of time, studying, aggravation, effort, probable difficulty, and possible disaster that would have accompanied any attempt by me to build it myself. When you factor all that in, I essentially got a do-it-yourself price, which as is obvious, saves a ton of money.
After I had ordered the machine, I read TilDeath’s post about his UPS horror story, and had some worries of my own. But when my machine arrived, I found to my pleasure that it was packed in an idiot-proof fashion – box inside of box and highly padded.
TilDeath then walked me through turning the machine on, explained everything he had done, showed me where to find what I needed and advised how to go about doing things in the future. He had already installed Aces High, but had me log in so he could walk me through what settings to check. Try getting that with Dell
I’ve spent the past week or so putting this machine through its paces and can say I’m extremely pleased. It plays Aces High flawlessly at the highest detail settings, which is great. I’d been playing with visual range set at about 0.5 miles and still getting a very poor frame rate anywhere besides a 1v1 in the DA. Now, I’m playing with the range set at 3.0 and no problems with tracers flying all around and a bunch of planes in a furball. Likewise, I can also play the Total War series at a high graphics level. I was never able to experience “huge” or “ultra” unit settings before without severe performance problems. Now I can, and yes, it makes a difference
All in all, and most importantly, I feel as though I got great value for my money. I got a better product and better service for much less money than I would have paid a major company. In any economy, that sort of result is appreciated, but in today’s, it’s vital.
If you are considering getting a new computer I highly advise you to at least drop TilDeath a PM. He’ll send you his number, and after a conversation and a bit of research I’m confident you’ll decide to buy through him, and be very happy with your decision to do so.
Thanks again, TilDeath,
JP
