Joined on 05/19/06
Rock Solid and Stable
Pros: - Fast and stable. - Enabling XMP in BIOS clocks to 1600Mhz speed and adjusts timings accordingly. - If XMP is not an option (and your board is running this kit at 1333Mhz) entering the timings manually literally takes all of a minute. - Noticeable performance increase in several memory hungry applications. (If you're a video/graphics editor, you'll wish you'd ordered sooner!) - Room to overclock if this wasn't fast enough! - I hate leaving 'non-technical' pros, but this kit does look pretty cool. Not only in design but their choice of blue really pops off the motherboard.
Cons: - This is not a con of the memory, but if you're using Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows Vista Home Premium PAY ATTENTION HERE! Micrsoft has set a limitation of 16GB to the maximum available memory supported in these versions. While this kit will work, Windows will report 32GB installed with 16GB available. You have 2 choices here: 1. Buy a 16GB kit instead and save a little $$$ 2. Upgrade to the Professional or Ultimate versions. As of 03/2013 the Anytime Upgrade option for Home Premium to Professional for Windows 7 is ~$90. - Not all motherboards will run this memory at 1600Mhz out of the box. If you need assistance in manually setting the timings, check the the G.Skill forums.
Overall Review: I'll try and keep this review short and to the point. At the risk of sounding like a fan, which is not my intent, this is my 4th memory kit from G.Skill. 4 kits over 7 years with 0 problems. There are very few vendors who put out competitively priced memory that consistently receive high ratings from their customers. Look at the reviews for yourself. Not only do they respond to customers who are dissatisfied or having problems (And note they don't respond with the same generic "we're sorry... contact support" company standard copy/paste used by most other vendors.), but they also respond to the positive reviews as well. They take the time to communicate with each individual customer. The reason I say this is so you understand you really can't go wrong with this kit vs any others you may be considering right now and I'm very confident in that statement. With that said, 32GB might be a little more then I personally need today and perhaps a few of you as well. But it's nice to know a year or two or five from now that a memory upgrade won't be on my/your list of concerns.
Another Update after 10 1/2 Months of Use
Pros: Rather then re-paste both my original and updated review, if you sort by date, about half a dozen or so reviews down you'll find my name: J.J. and the review title: 10 Month Update to Original Review Please take the time to read that first and then read the follow up to it in the con section here.
Cons: 2 weeks after posting my 10 month update about the swivel breaking through the right can, the left one broke in the same fashion. Within 2 weeks of me posting that update, 3 additional reviewers out of 6 experienced the same exact problem. At the time I'm writing this review today there are 220 other reviews on this headset. I just did a (rather long) search through them all and more then 50 of them mention the headsets breaking and almost every one of them is in the same exact manner. I just checked out another on-line retailer's site (which I won't name, but you are all smart enough to figure out) and looked for reviews on this headset. Guess what? Almost 20-25% of the reviews mention them breaking IN THE SAME EXACT MANNER as others are experiencing here. We're talking almost 1 out of every 4 sold breaking within a few months. This is not a fluke; it is a design flaw and 100% unacceptable. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved this headset for the first few months but you ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT have that high of a breakage rate in this price range.
Overall Review: When I was first accepted into this Eggxpert review program I told myself to not only be honest, but to make sure I would follow up to my reviews if it was needed. This is most certainly a time when it's needed. There is a very high chance these will break on you regardless of how careful you are with them. I'll end on this: While I'm not here to support or recommend another brand/model, I am here to warn you that purchasing this headset is a risk. If you're still considering the purchase, just say this in your head before hitting "add to cart": 1 out of 4 break.
Good (But Not "WOW" Good) Case with a few Nice Features
Pros: I wouldn't call myself a Corsair 'fanboy' but I've bought A LOT of Corsair products over the last 15+ years. Multiple mice, keyboards, headsets, memory kits, etc. (The PSU in this build is also Corsair!) With that said, I don't dislike this case... I just find the look of it mediocre by comparison to a few other mid-tower choices. There are two cool design features they used here that I think should be standard for cases moving forward: First, the modular design allows you to change up the look of the case. Check the video Corsair included to get a better idea of what I mean here. Second, the "anti-sag" bracket for the GPU is great to include. While I didn't need it for this build, it definitely is forward thinking and I feel like might almost be a requirement at the rate these newer GPU's are growing in size. For a mid tower case, this thing is pretty big as well. Plenty of room for components and should easily fit most (if not all) GPU's, CPU fans or water cooling solution now and for the foreseeable future. Despite the size it's also fairly lightweight. Decent airflow as well.
Cons: By comparison to other mid-towers I've owned, the space on the back of the case is tighter than what I'd expect. It was a bit of a pain to get all the cables just right to prevent a little bulge when putting the side panel back on. The screws were a bit hard to get in and out while working on this case. Something just felt 'off' whereas, on other cases with the same type of screws, things easily tighten and unscrew. The cables for the front panel were a bit short IMO. I feel like another 2-3" is where they needed to be. Depending on your motherboard you might notice cables are a bit tight. I'd rather have the extra hide it in the back of the case.
Overall Review: If you like the look of this case go for it, however I believe there are better mid-tower options out there. Quite of few of which offer similar features as this one and are more... interesting to work with and look at. I can't really find the right words, but I like the design just not the look. If that makes any sense at all! If I could, I'd rate this a 4.5; I just can't bring myself to say this is worth of a 5 Egg rating so 4 it is.
Stupidly Fast With One Minor Issue
Pros: This 4th gen nvme drive from Crucial claims just over 7000MBps reads and let me tell you, it delivers on that. Same with 6000MBps writes. Construction is solid. The heatsink is big and keeps the drive running cool after hours of gaming. Coming from a slightly older nvme drive that's only 10-20% slower than this one the overall performance is hard to notice unless you're literally keeping a stopwatch to it. For example, loading a saved game from Red Dead Redemption 2 that took 38.6 seconds on my old drive took 35.4 with this one. So it won't be a huge game changer unless you're coming from a gen3 or older model.
Cons: I have tried this drive on 2 different PC's because I was seeing "odd" behavior with large file copies on my main PC. The speed would randomly bounce; sometimes as low as the 2000-3000 range, albeit for a brief moment, and then back to ~7000MBps. On the 2nd PC I have another gen4, ironically enough also Crucial, and I don't see this behavior with that one either. That drive pushes 5GBps consistently moving the same size file. I also don't see this behavior on the nvme drive I replaced with this P310 in my main PC. Full disclosure, they're both MSI boards. Same "family" of models so maybe it's the board handling this fast of a drive? If I figure out the reason I'll come back and update this review. Regardless of that, overall, it's still an upgrade in both speed and capacity and I'm hesitant to knock this to a 4 egg rating unless I'm 100% certain the drive itself is the issue.
Overall Review: With that said, it's been about a week now and I can honestly say I have no complaints despite the issue mentioned above. As long as your board supports Gen4 M.2 you'll be happy with the full performance of this drive.
My First AIO Cooler and I'm Sold
Pros: This is my first AIO cooler. I've always leaned towards high end air cooling in the past and I have to say I'm beyond impressed by what I'm seeing (and not hearing!) in this TRYX AIO. The heatsink (dual fan) I replaced with this was definitely skirting the mid-high to high end air cooling solutions. Not only does the TRYX keep my idle temps a few degrees cooler but under load with moderate gaming the temps are literally 10 degrees cooler. (i7 10700k with a mild overclock) Under extreme loads it sits around 10-15 degrees cooler but far less noisy compared to my air cooler. If I crank the fan speed up it will stay consistently ~15 degrees cooler than the air cooling. But the most impressive part of that is the silence. I'm able to maintain the level of cooling I am right now (check the included screenshot) without the need to have the TRYX fans spin up to an audible level. The pump is also silent. To the point I questioned if it was even running the first time I turned it on! Under heavy duty gaming the TRYX is still able to maintain significantly lower temps at much lower fan speeds. The silence really is golden. I really can't stress how quiet this is while still maintaining great temps. The ARGB lighting is a nice touch and added to the theme of my entire build. Keep in mind you need to either have support for it on your motherboard or a controller. There is no way to adjust the lighting without it. The install is simple. Took all of 10 minutes to get setup. Instructions are easy to follow. The screen can be mounted at different orientations, vertical and horizontal. All customizable through the software. You can also add some neat effects like rain or fog. There's ways to split the images as well and treat the display as two screens. Speaking of the software... this leads me to my one con.
Cons: The KANALI software is not intuitive and occasionally buggy. I've been using this cooler for around a week now and I had a case where the software started up full screen with no way to minimize it. Then I had another instance where it just stopped displaying an image while I was gaming and required me to go back into the software and reapply the image I had set. I feel like a few tweaks of the GUI would make finding settings a little easier as well as easier to understand. Nothing I would knock an egg off for though.
Overall Review: I think I'm a convert. Don't get me wrong, a really good air cooler can still get the job done and compete with low to mid-range AIO solutions. This AIO however is definitely meant to compete with the higher end of cooling solutions out there and does an outstanding job at it. I think it's worth it and for now the biggest problem I have is do I want to keep the temps and fan noise down or open up the possibility of pushing my overclock even higher? Good problem to have! If you're on the fence, honestly, just go for it. You'll be happy with the results.
Small Footprint and FAST
Pros: Before I get to the pros, I want to mention I used this drive on a desktop, an Android phone and a PS5. I mention the later two as the performance of the drive was fantastic if you're looking to add on some quick and easy storage to your console and the fact that it works with your phone should you want a quick and easy way to backup or transfer media off. - As you can see in the pictures the drive is relatively small. My phone is a Galaxy S21 (~6 inches long) and you can see this drive is tiny by comparison making portability easy. - You can find plenty of generic benchmarks for the drive, but for my use I was transferring larger files off a desktop at ~800-850MB/s which is about as fast as the drive in that particular desktop can handle. - I copied over 2000 photos and videos from my phone to the drive in under a minute. - I moved over 3000 screenshots and video clips from our PS5 to the drive in under 3 minutes. Bottom line is no matter what you're looking to do, this drive is going to deliver in the speed department. - While not as fast as the internal storage that comes with a PS5, games ran flawlessly off it it. Great to add space to accommodate a larger gaming library rather than constantly installing/uninstalling things. - The casing is plastic but it's not flimsy/cheap. As in if you carried this around in your pocket you wouldn't be afraid of accidentally breaking it. - Stays cool during use.
Cons: I'm going to have to nitpick for a con here. I feel at this price point a USB-C to USB adapter should have been included for USB 2.0/3.0 ports. While yes, you won't get anywhere near the speeds advertised due to the limitations of USB, it gives you the flexibility to at least use the drive on older devices if needed.
Overall Review: What's there to really say? It's fast. It works with desktops, phones, and consoles. The X9 is a great alternative to thumb drives despite being slightly larger. I honestly have zero complaints.