The year sure blew by here at Evatech HQ, we had a lot going on to keep us all busy.
Almost as soon as we started back in January, we had Intel’s 7th Gen CPUs launch; Kaby Lake. This also saw the introduction of Z270, H270, and B250 series motherboards. Previous series Z170, H170, B150, and H110 motherboards were able to take a BIOS update to cope with the 7th Gen CPUs, but were mostly replaced once the new stock had become abundantly available.
By late February we had added AMD’s comeback to CPUs and motherboards after their previous release which was back in 2011. Ryzen has had quite a few issues since its launch, and Evatech still advises against Ryzen for all our customers. We also released our own warranty service, dropping support of National Warranty Services (NWS) in order to give Evatech ultimate control of the quality of work carried out on our customers’ PCs.
In March we saw Nvidia launch the highly anticipated GTX 1080 TI graphics card, which is still the best gaming graphics card you can buy today. Ryzen also released their lower-end CPUs. Evatech officially picked up InWin cases. While not the easiest or most conventional to build in, they do have an undeniable pleasing look to them once completed.
April. What can I say? We kept our heads down and got work done.
Skipping ahead to May, we got a look at RGB RAM done very, very right, with GSkill’s DDR4 Trident Z RGB RAM.
In June, we launched our Zurich workstation PC which has proved to be very popular amongst businesses and individuals who spend most of their time working in 3D design applications and the likes. A few weeks after the success of the Zurich, we added our Stealth PC, which offers home users the ability to go further than our original Everest PC in terms of performance, and is also focused on quiet operation. As if this wasn’t enough, Intel also launched their X299 series of motherboards, to replace the X99 series. With this of course, a new range of CPUs, for the first time ever going up to an i9 CPU, instead of the previous highest end i7 CPU.
In early July we were finally able to announce that we had been working with Channel 7’s hit new TV show focused on PC/console gaming; screenPLAY. screenPLAY airs on 7mate, and was recently moved from a Thursday 10pm time-slot to Thursday 7:30pm. The show is hosted by faces that should be familiar to most gamers or game enthusiasts: Stephanie Bendixsen (@hexsteph), Nich Richardson (@nichboy), and Miles Ross (@MilesTheRoss). Evatech supplied screenPLAY with the PCs they use to game on, record the gameplay, as well as edit and process the video footage for the TV show that is then aired on YouTube and/or TV! We also provided the gaming chairs you will see the hosts sitting on.
With August we started to get a taste for Bitcoin’s ability to influence PC hardware availability and pricing. Bitcoin’s price started to surge, and crypto-currency miners all over the globe started to buy up Evatech’s favourite GPUs: GTX 1060, GTX 1070, GTX 1080, and GTX 1080 TI. We turned away requests to building mining rigs, or customers who were obviously after graphics cards for mining purposes as we are all about gaming. We experienced some delays while we struggled to get our hands on top-tier graphics cards for our customers, but still managed to get PCs out on time for our gaming customers.
September started off with a bang as Deakin University placed an order for five X299 PCs, each of them identical: liquid cooled i9 7900X, 128GB DDR4 RAM, 4x liquid cooled GTX 1080 TI, a 2TB SSD, 8TB HDD, 1500w PSU, and sleeved PSU cables. After receiving the five PCs, they fairly promptly ordered another four of the same system for another campus. Oh yeah, each system was valued at over $14,000. Evatech single-handedly wiped out Australia’s stock of liquid cooled GTX 1080 TIs, meaning we had to bring in many units from the US to build the PCs in time. It was around this time that the crypto-currency mining had taken its toll on RAM availability and pricing, unfortunately.
Deakin’s second order of expensive PCs brought us into October, which also saw the new Quadro series of graphics cards added to our workstation PCs. Nvidia also released their GTX 1070 TI graphics card, which hasn’t seemed too popular just yet. We also loaned a gaming PC to screenPLAY to use at PAX in Melbourne (since they film in Sydney). Later in the month, we were introduced to Intel’s 8th Gen CPUs; Coffee Lake. Availability of Coffee Lake was next to non-existent however, and Evatech’s website didn’t begin offering Coffee Lake powered custom PCs until later the next month… What’s the next month?!
November! We were finally able to list Coffee Lake in our Valkyrie X custom PC. Kaby Lake is still offered in our Valkyrie system, along-side Coffee Lake, probably for the next 6 months or so until Intel finishes the 8th Gen release entirely. So far, we’ve only got Intel’s Z370 series of motherboards, with the rest to follow in the first half of next year (rumoured).
With our workload really ramping up in November, December had started and we hadn’t even realised it for the first week. Apart from getting PCs out to customers all over Australia in time for Christmas and the summer school holidays, we had a lot to be thankful for: coming to the end of our best year yet. Due to being a relatively new company in this space, we’ve only just really started to see return customers in a big way this year. With their old systems just not able to keep up with the ever-demanding new game releases. We’re happy to see happy customers come back for more of the Evatech experience.
We have a lot of people to thank, starting with you; the customers. Without you, we simply wouldn’t be able to work in such a challenging and rewarding space, being able to bring dreams to reality for those who know what they want and those who are unsure but don’t want to be ripped off or mislead.
Next goes to our hard-working staff; management, purchasing, accounting, technicians, support, and sales. All working together seamlessly to maintain our high customer satisfaction levels.
Finally to all our partners; distributors, brands, and couriers. Without any of these, we’d have nothing. And let’s not forget our happy friends over at screenPLAY! We’ve thoroughly enjoyed sponsoring the show, as well as prizes to happy viewers of the show.
Thank you to all who have been a part of our journey so far, we sincerely look forward to working with all of you in the new year, and also aspire to please the newcomers in 2018.
Look for us in the new year – we’re here to stay, but might have a new look…
Hope you and your loved ones have very happy and safe Christmas & New Years celebrations.