Joined on 08/09/04
Excessive but worth it
Pros: Insanely fast. Runs reasonably cool for most games, it barely breaks 55C most of the time. The hottest I've managed to get it is 70C when running Unigine Valley. The fan is quiet, there's no whine or anything like that. Performance is awesome. Out of the box with no tweaking, I get 4002 / 95.6fps on Valley at 1920x1080 with Extreme HD preset. This is on a 4930K @ 4.1ghz with 16gb RAM.
Cons: The cost, obviously. And while the fan is quiet, if it cranks up you definitely hear the air whooshing out the back of the card. But I'm using a custom fan curve on EVGA Precision that is similar to "Aggressive", I set it up for my 780ti and probably will dial it back a little bit since the card's safe limit is 83F and it never gets close to that.
Overall Review: I upgraded from a 780ti ACX SC. I was going to get the 980ti ACX SC, but it's still just about impossible to get hold of and I decided I didn't want to wait. No regrets here.
Was great until it died not 2 months in
Pros: Light, responsive, no acceleration, no input lag. Very comfortable.
Cons: Left button began sending double-clicks instead of single clicks less than two months after I got it. So it's useless.
Overall Review: Would not recommend, would not buy again, would change it so the copper bits in the button switches aren't so cheap and last longer.
Pros: Cheap, works
Cons: Warranty sticker nonsense
Overall Review: I bought this to use as a Linux box. It acts as a file and print server, and monitors my CCTV cameras with ZoneMinder. I bought a cheap 8-input BT878 card to connect my cameras, so I needed a machine with an old-school PCI slot. This thing works fine, I had to void the warranty to install the capture card but oh well. I got it set up, stuck it in the closet, and it basically just works. It's on 24/7 and no heat or other issues, so I really can't complain. For the price it's less hassle than building my own.
DOA
Pros: None really
Cons: We connected a few machines to this switch and connected the switch into our network. Immediately, performance on the entire network slowed to a crawl. We disconnected the switch and the other equipment returned to normal speed. Devices connected through this switch experienced packet loss and very slow speeds, regardless of which ports we used. This thing is obviously defective.
Overall Review: I should have read online reviews before buying this. I just sort of assumed that unmanaged switches were such a commodity item by now that you couldn't screw them up, but I guess I was wrong where Linksys is concerned.
Pros: Very fast, great with games, screen is outstanding.
Cons: Should ship with 2GB, initial Vista setup is terrible
Overall Review: I purchased this laptop along with a Corsair VS1GSDS667D2 DIMM to add a second gig. The laptop is a great value even without the added RAM, it plays games like Oblivion acceptably well at 1280x800 and pretty much everything about the hardware is top notch. Even the little USB mouse it comes with is good for gaming. The only bad thing was the Vista setup. The out of box experience is terrible, the machine just bogs down as it tries to update Vista, Norton, Windows Defender, etc, and all of the Vista security stuff is a nightmare. Removing norton, disabling UAC, and disabling Windows Search service made all the difference. It's now just as useable as my XP desktop, even with all of the Aero visual effects enabled -- the video card is more than able to handle that, it scores a 4.8 on the Vista Experience graphics ratings. Adding the RAM was a snap, just unscrew the big panel and pop the DIMM into the free socket. The laptop automatically detects it without going into the BIOS
Excellent deal
Pros: Snap to install, compatible with my laptop.
Cons: None.
Overall Review: I bought this to go with my Asus F3T-AP042C laptop, which only ships with 1GB. The DIMM shipped from a different location than the laptop, so I had a couple of days to try the laptop with just the one gig before the DIMM arrived. The DIMM was simple to install and makes a giant difference in performance. Oblivion plays much smoother, everything starts up faster, and the memory index in Vista Experience Rating went from 4.5 to 5.5.