Joined on 02/08/11
First Mouse Pad - Works Great
Pros: Completely smooth surface. Before I used my desk table, and this is much better. Biggest thing I like is how thin this is.
Cons: None
Overall Review: Pretty big! I like it, some might not.
Stability Problems
Pros: Fast Boot Times Good Update Speeds
Cons: Randomly was causing my system to freeze till hard booted. SSD came with Firmware 0009 installed. Ruled out everything else in my system (overheating, etc) and it all came back to the SSD. Tried numerous fixes and tweaks but freezes persisted. Freezes always occurred with a browser open and the active window (which perplexes me).
Overall Review: I have reinstalled my OS on my mechanical drive (depressing going back to 50s boots) and set it up as a slave to install games on or something see if I still get issues.
Great Performance - Huge Coil Whine
Pros: Smashes through games. I upgraded from an ASUS GTX680 and in Unigine Heaven I went from around 50-60 FPS to well over 110 when both cards were put under comparative load. Just amazing performance and any game thrown at it it had no problems no matter the settings (supersample, etc). When idle the fan isn't on so the whole setup is incredibly quiet so long as there's no load on the GPU.
Cons: NOT a 0db card as advertised when you actually start to use it. The coil whine was simply too much. On a light game (Diablo 3) which only put the card under 18% GPU load there was a light noise but nothing I couldn't live with. On a medium game (Guild Wars 2) which put the card anywhere from 40% - 75% load that's where the real noise began to pick up. While 40% was something I could live with the peaks up to 75% load created coil whine that was very loud and obnoxious. Even turning the fan up manually to 60% wasn't enough to mask the noise. While wearing my headset blocked the noise, I shouldn't have to wear my headset just to not get a headache. When put under extreme load (Unigine Heaven) the coil whine was incredible and I honestly had to turn it off after 5 minutes because I was getting a headache.
Overall Review: I've RMA'd the card and see if I can get another one that doesn't suffer from this. Looking at other reviews I am not hopeful. Shame because I am a huge fan of ASUS cards and have recommended them to anyone who asks. Will re-review the product after they send me the next one and see if it suffers from the same issue. I did verify it was the card making the coil whine, as I pulled the PSU out of my case (somewhat annoying) so I could separate it from the card and ensure that it was coming from the card itself.
Amazing Card
Pros: -Very cool Card (50-60 degrees under load)! -Very quiet! -Runs every game on max without a hitch!
Cons: -Size?
Overall Review: I used to buy "reference" cards and every time they'd heat up to about 80-90 degrees. Then you end up tweaking the fans and cranking them up and now you got that noise going on. This thing barely reaches 60 degrees under full on load running any modern game on Ultra (Planetside 2, Guild Wars 2, etc) and barely makes a sound. Best of all it looks great. The ASUS software it comes with has a number of presets including a preset for overclocking for Games. I tend to use that instead. Was very handy if you are afraid of messing with voltages and such or just want to monitor performance. Hit the "G" and you are set. I would have listed the cost as a con but honestly you're paying for a beast card and you get one. I could see the size being bad if you wanted two of these or something but otherwise wasn't a huge deal. Owned for 6+ Months and not a single issue!
Awesome
Pros: Scroll wheel and a number of extra buttons is awesome and I haven't changed the batteries despite heavy usage in over a month and a half.
Cons: None
Overall Review: I was a pretty religious user of the "Trackman Marble" product (I still have 3 lying around 1 for my work PC and 2 for my home PCs) but got pretty tired of not having a scroll wheel. I was fairly skeptical cause it was wireless (I hate batteries) and some of the reviews but now am glad I bought it. I had to adjust the roller ball orientation and once I did and got it to where I was comfortable it took around a week to adjust to this newer version of it. I actually prefer it now.