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William Q.

William Q.

Joined on 03/28/10

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 28
Most Favorable Review

Can overclock the G3258 with the F5 BIOS update

GIGABYTE GA-H81M-DS2V (rev. 1.0) LGA 1150 Intel H81 USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-H81M-DS2V (rev. 1.0) LGA 1150 Intel H81 USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: I managed to get this board along with the G3258 together for a really great price. I heard that some ASUS and MSI non Z series boards could overclock the G3258, but I hadn't heard anything about Gigabyte boards so I was curious when the board arrived. My board came with the F1 BIOS which wasn't able to overclock the chip. Once I upgraded to the latest F5 BIOS I was able to overclock it. Obviously you won't be breaking records with the board, but for the money it's a great deal. I'm currently running at 4GHz with the stock cooler in a small form factor case without any issues.

Cons: I noticed that even without overclocking the system that the heatsink on top of the chipset gets really warm, warmer than most of the other boards that I have used in the past. I haven't experienced any real issues with the system due to the warm chipset so I guess I can't really complain.

Overall Review: Overall this is a really good Micro ATX board for the money. If you have a little extra money I'd look for a model that has four slots for RAM for easier upgrades in the future.

Most Critical Review

It works, but doesn't carry a lot of power

BYTECC USB2-6MF-K Black Type A Male to Type A Female USB 2.0 Extension Cable
BYTECC USB2-6MF-K Black Type A Male to Type A Female USB 2.0 Extension Cable

Pros: It works with most USB devices.

Cons: It doesn't work with USB devices that require a lot of power to run. Something like a USB hard drive won't work with this cable.

Athena Power RM-1U100DR22 Black Aluminum / Steel 1U Rackmount Server Case FLEX 220W 1 External 5.25" Drive Bays
Athena Power RM-1U100DR22 Black Aluminum / Steel 1U Rackmount Server Case FLEX 220W 1 External 5.25" Drive Bays

Pros: This is a pretty good deal on a small 1U chassis and a high quality PSU. I bought one seven months ago, and second one a week ago.

Cons: The first system I build had problems with the back I/O area. The audio jacks were too tall to fit into the space, and the I/O shield was way too tall. I ended up cutting out the metal support bar above the I/O area and that allowed me to fit the audio jacks through the hole. Not having the I/O shield wasn't a big deal for me. The second system I built had problems with the power button. One of the wires that connected to the button had fallen off at one point. I was able to solder it back to the button, but you'd think something like that wouldn't happen. I couldn't get the I/O shield to fit with the second system, but the audio jacks fit through without any modifications. It doesn't come with a manual so I'm still not sure what the correct way to install hard drives is.

Overall Review: Overall I'd recommend it. It's not perfect, but I haven't seen a perfect 1U chassis before. For the money I think this is the best one out there.

12/31/2015

Not the best R9 290 for the money

ASUS Radeon R9 290 4GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card R9290-DC2OC-4GD5
ASUS Radeon R9 290 4GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card R9290-DC2OC-4GD5

Pros: This graphics card costs about the same amount of money as most of the other R9 290 cards on the market. For the money you get a really fast card that compares with higher priced NVIDIA cards and even performs better at higher resolutions. I got this card to play 1440p games and so far I have been really impressed. This graphics card is very fast.

Cons: The problem with this graphics card is that ASUS didn't design the cooler specifically for this card. They took their cooler from an NVIDIA card and put it onto this card. Because of that not all of the heat pipes make the best contact with the GPU cores meaning that even though the cooler is good it's not being fully utilized. Obviously this card is still going to perform cooler and quieter than a stock R9 290 cooler, but there are many other options for about the same price that cool the card better.

Overall Review: So in the end I wouldn't really recommend this card unless you get a really good deal on it, or just really like the way it looks. There are many other options that run cooler and quieter for the same price. It's disappointing that ASUS didn't put more work into making the cooler more suited for the R9 290.

Amazing value

Intel Pentium G3258 - Pentium Haswell Dual-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1150 53W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80646G3258
Intel Pentium G3258 - Pentium Haswell Dual-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1150 53W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80646G3258

Pros: So far I am really impressed with the G3258. It's really cheap, has an unlocked multiplier, and can be overclocked on many non Z series boards. With a Gigabyte board that costs less than this chip I have been able to get to 4GHz with the stock cooler. Temps are maxing out in the low 70s.

Cons: Going into the future this chip will most likely not age very well. With more and more applications and games taking advantage of multiple threads this dual core chip is going to fall behind.

Overall Review: I kind of wish Intel released an unlocked chip in all of their chip series as in the Celeron and i3 as well as the Pentium, i5, and i7.

It's slow, but works

ASUS Eee PC 1015PN-PU17-WT White Intel Atom N550(1.50GHz) Dual Core 10.1" WSVGA 1GB Memory 250GB HDD Netbook
ASUS Eee PC 1015PN-PU17-WT White Intel Atom N550(1.50GHz) Dual Core 10.1" WSVGA 1GB Memory 250GB HDD Netbook

Pros: It's a slow, but it's also a netbook. It works for most things that I need it to do.

Cons: The screen resolution is a little too low.