Maximum PC: Boutique builder Velocity Micro is joining a growing number of companies looking to carve out a place for themselves in your living room. Velocity Micro's new Raptor MultiPlex is a fully customizable home theater and gaming hybrid system that's capable of streaming and gaming at a Full HD 1080 resolution. It also sports Cable Card functionality with DVR, Blu-ray playback, and other living room amenities.
Maximum PC: One of the advantages of rolling your own rig is that once the parts arrive, you can get busy assembling the system and be finished on the same day. But when you order from a bulk OEM or boutique builder, you're at the mercy of their lead times. You don't have much choice when it comes to laptops -- there aren't a ton of whitebox options -- though Velocity Micro today announced three custom configured laptop lines, each of which requires just a three-day lead time.
Maximum PC: If you were worried that Nvidia's newly announced graphics cards would amount to a paper launch, don't be. Boutique system builders have already armed themselves with the new GPUs -- GeForce GTX 750, GeForce GTX 750 Ti, and GeForce GTX Titan Black -- and are chomping (or "champing," if you prefer) at the bit to build your next gaming PC using Nvidia's newest hardware.
Maximum PC: Looking back at 2012, it was clearly the year of the Ultrabook, at least on the notebook computing side. Barring any surprises, that trend will continue throughout 2013, and even Velocity Micro is getting in on the action. The boutique system builder announced three new "NoteMagix" Ultrabook models starting at $800 for the NoteMagix U430. The entry-level model sports a 14-inch WXGA (1366x768) display and comes equipped with an Intel Core i3 3217U processor, 4GB of RAM, and 500GB HDD + 24GB SSD.