Owed Curtis and BlissVector a review from a couple years ago -- so here goes! First, let's just say I want to join the chorus of praise for this company and especially Curtis. Second, since this review is overdue, I'm gonna tell the whole story so -- it'll be a little long. ; )
FADE IN: 2021. In the middle of the pandemic my Lenovo desktop's HDD started to fail. It was 8 years old. Time for a new machine.
*Small side plug -- I first took my failing HDD to Five Star Recovery in Glendale. Owe them a review as well. They are simply the best when it comes to data recovery.
Back to BlissVector.
So I'm in the market for a new PC in 2021 and I run straight smack into the Great Chip Shortage. Retail stocks of PC machines are depleted and the manufacturers are unable to ship many machines to stores or customers.
While talking to a Best Buy sales person about my options (which were grim) he mentioned there was this guy who often came in to buy parts because he builds computers. Maybe my best bet was to have a machine built for me. That was my introduction to Curtis and BlissVector.
I was a little skeptical at first. But after leaving a message for Curtis he got right back to me and not only said he could definitely build me whatever I was looking for -- he was sincerely excited about the job.
We talked a lot about what my needs were. Right upfront the communication was fantastic. I had a budget. But I also wanted the best machine for my money. I wanted to be able to play high-end games over the life of the machine. I don't run an Avid video editor, but I do edit video projects as well as photos and music and I needed a machine that would run editing software and store large projects, call them up, make edits, save and and create playable files and burn DVDs and CDs -- all without any lagging. That meant a great graphics card and multiple data drives.
I also had a budget. When I explained to Curtis what I needed and the budget I wanted to stay in, he was very flexible and adaptive to my needs. He was very upfront about costs. I don't like surprises so I asked a lot of questions concerning the money required to create the right machine. Curtis never hid costs, never hesitated to quote prices and in the end the final amount was very close to his initial estimate.
Curtis also has great connections when it comes to computer parts. Despite the Great Chip Shortage in 2021, Curtis via his connections was able to get fantastic graphics cards and drives. Curtis suggested a SSD c: boot drive for the OS and I requested two high-capacity HDDs for data storage.
***One important thing I learned from Five Star Recovery is that as awesome as SSD drives are -- the second they get corrupted, the data is usually inaccessible and can't be recovered. While on the other hand HDDs are almost always readable in some form or another. For boot speed -- SSD. For safe data storage -- HDD.
I wound up with an Intel(R) Core (TM) i7 10700K 3.80GHz CPU -- NIVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card -- Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB SSD for the c: boot drive -- 2TB HDD primary data drive for back-ups -- and a 4TB HDD secondary data drive for video, music and photo files.
The only upfront money I had to pay was for the NIVIDIA graphics card and the Samsung 1TB SSD -- which was perfectly fine as I wanted to make sure Curtis could go out and snag those key parts in a very barren marketplace.
Once Curtis had all the parts needed to create the rig -- the build happened within a week! I picked it up, brought it home, plugged in my new displays and peripherals and it ran instantly and perfectly like a Swiss watch.
*One of the great benefits of having a PC custom built is you'll get a clean install of your OS and none of the bloatware and junkware (and frankly a lot of annoying Microsoft and manufacturer satellite software) that comes with the machines built by the likes of Dell, Acer, Lenovo, IBM, Intel, etc. This can often make a HUGE difference in how cleanly and quickly your PC boots and runs.
In summation -- Curtis and BlissVector built me my dream machine and did so even staying within my general budget. Curtis always promptly responded to questions and queries. He was actually even more excited than I was about the building of the computer! He had great suggestions and solutions for my computing needs. And -- on top of all that he's a fun, energetic and dedicated person to work with.
Two years later the PC is still running flawlessly. So haven't had any major IT problems to go to Curtis with -- but if I do I'm going straight to BlissVector. I feel almost blessed that we have such great company right here in Pasadena. read more