Joined on 12/27/08
Sapphire Crossfire
Pros: Fast Card. It's ALWAYS 10C cooler than my Batmobile design Sapphire 5770. Energy Efficient & Easy Overclocking Capabilities. Most games stay over 100fps constantly in crossfire. Of course the price, I can't forget that.
Cons: None. *insert joke about it not doing household work*
Overall Review: This is the second Sapphire 5770 I've bought for my rig from the egg. It clearly cools better than the older design heatsink as stated above. When two cards are put together in Crossfire you better watch out. These things get amazing frames on just about any game that supports Crossfire. I had a few issues when setting it up, CCC showed Crossfire Enabled but wasn't having any effect in game. I ended up swapping this card to the primary PCI-E slot and putting the older card in the secondary slot. It worked like a charm after that, I'm figuring it has something to do with the slightly newer BIOS in this card compared to the older one. The other problem was a flicker in game, it was easily fixed by turning off Catalyst AI in CCC. Also, you only need to use one crossfire bridge for two cards. I wish I would have read a review with this information in it before I decided to install my cards in this configuration. Happy Fragging.
Nice Fan, Quiet
Pros: This fan is very quiet compared to similar fans that are 140mm but have 120mm mounts. I am using just one of these in the center of a silver arrow. From my experience, the noisiest fan on a heatsink with dual towers is the center fan. This I believe is due to the restriction and contact to the heatsink on both sides of the frame. However, this fan still pushes a nice bit of air and does it without vibrating the heat sink.
Cons: I already knew what it came with so this isnt a con for me, but for the product in general. Compared to Noctua fans that are in direct competition to this offering, I'd say this product is behind quite a bit in the accessory department. (Only comes with fan screws.)
Overall Review: I would say that this particular fan is Phanteks' take on a Thermalright TY based fan. They list it as quieter than a TY-141, but with more air output. I'd say it gets pretty close, and this is due to the slightly higher blade count in addition to the technology Phanteks is using for bearings and blades. The TY-141 and the PH-F140HP are very closely priced. If I was to choose between the two, I would choose the Phanteks hands down.
Great board, great price
Pros: I have had no problems out of this board whatsoever. Except for the usual super high auto voltage. That was easily fixed by applying a negative offset in the BIOS. Not a big deal. 555 is awesome and works great, as well as VirtuMVP.
Cons: Lots of crapware with the driver disc. Easily uninstalled.
Overall Review: This is the best value to features mobo on newegg hands down. If you are on the edge about it, just go for it. You will not regret the decision. I see the negative reviews here and there on this board, but look at almost any review.. There are always defects with electronics in general. Nothing different here and it has nothing to do with brand names.
pretty good for its age
Pros: This case fits a lot of hardware. I've had up to 4 3.5 drives, a ssd, all fan mounts filled, multiple video cards of varying lengths and a few different boards and it all fit and stayed cool. Adding a bottom exhaust helps with some of the dust. All in all a good case. I'm currently running a 3570k setup @4.2 with a lower end TX3 and the idle temps are 17-24c and load temps around 55c due to the great quiet airflow quality of this case.
Cons: The styling is somewhat dated. This thing is a dust magnet. Within a month or so after cleaning, it will be dusty and the front filter will block most of the lighting that emits from the front bezel. The side panels are very much deformed and hard to get on. The front filter removal requires 3 small screws from each side be removed and the front bezel taken off to get at it. This thing is a little too heavy to move often. One of the feet easily broke off of my case and the case will rattle and buzz until I bought a new foot.
Great MSI 5770 card
Pros: I bought this card to supplement an existing sapphire 2nd gen 5770 card w/ the egg cooler. I run this card in the master position and the other in slave for crossfire. This card is on average 10C-15C cooler than the other card. The best 5770 I have owned. The cooler/card is very solid, I don't see how people were saying it was flimsy. You can tell just from holding it that it is great quality. Crossfire with this card compared to the first gen vanilla 5770 just seems more snappy and responsive. MSIs card design claims are very true. This thing goes beyond normal 5770 overclocking levels.
Cons: Not really a con to the card, but after i got crossfire setup, MSI afterburner was reporting GPU1 (this card) being at 400mhz core and 900mhz memory in game. The slave was at full clock speeds. After about 10 minutes of research i found that something called ULPS that needed to be disabled in the registry. After I made the registry fix and rebooted, the crossfire was markedly faster as the GPU/MEM speeds were correct now.
Overall Review: I have owned the batmobile, egg, and this card. This card is really a great improvement to the original designs. I wish I had another one.
Pretty good stuff
Pros: This RAM is fast, stable, and good for the money. I had it clocked at 1066mhz for a while and decided to do a system overclock. I lowered the memory multiplier and finally decided on 886mhz. I also lowered the timings to 5-4-4-12, I'm not sure if this is as low as it gets at this speed, but wow, it's actually faster now. I've seen frame rates and response times in games improve dramatically.
Cons: For the money and quality of this memory, there are no cons.
Overall Review: I've owned this ram for almost a year now and sometimes clocked it above the speed rating and it still works great. If you need some good ram and you are low on cash you won't regret buying these.