Joined on 10/06/09
Fantastic Cooler, Cool looks, Great Price
Pros: -Very quiet.<br>-Very cool. (see Other for details)<br>-Looks cool when my case door is open although I lack a windowed case.<br>-Fan wires are plenty long enough and in braided shield to fit any board layout I can imagine.
Cons: -A few bent fins from packaging, though not harmful to product in any way and easy to bend back into place.<br>-Rubber "standoffs" for screw-less mounting of the fan: only comes with enough for the one included fan, so you'll need to acquire more if you want to add a second fan for push-pull operation. Mine came with 5 standoffs and I destroyed two of them trying to get them into place when assembling. I would prefer screws in the future.<br>-AMD mounts can only face the fan/heatsink up or down, not forward/back. I did research prior to purchase and maybe I missed this point or just misread it. Would really have liked to have my CPD fan pulling from over my RAM, but this beast moves so much air that even being mounted as it is it still helped cool my ram just from increased airflow in that area of my case.
Overall Review: -I would DEFINITELY recommend this product to others (have already, in fact), so long as I make clear the AMD mounting restrictions and RAM clearance.<br><br>-It is clearly stated in others posts about how much clearance is needed when mounting up/down for AMD that the RAM is a VERY tight fit. Even using RAM without integral heat sinks on my closest slot the THEMIS still touches my closest memory slot. RAM with a heat sink is not an option in that closest slot. Because I was aware of this prior to purchase, I will not remove any eggs.<br><br>-Going from a stock fan on an AMD FX6120 that would routinely hit 65*C or higher while playing certain games (Civ:BE, Skyrim with mods) and occasionally shutdown from overheat protection, I have not been able to make my CPU go higher than 40*C since installation of this Cooler. Not even increasing my settings from previous overheat levels, or multitasking intensive office software while also gaming can bring my CPU over that 40* threshold. <br><br>- My happiness with this product has led me to research other products from RAIJINTEK for my cooling needs on my soon-to-happen updating of my gaming rig. Edit: Since writing the above review I have upgraded to an FX8350 processor on an MSI 990FX GAMING motherboard. Have a mild overclock to ~4370mhz and still cannot make my processor go over 40*C while running Fallout w/ mild mods, Skyrim heavily modded, Elite: Dangerous, Civ5 & Civ:BE all on Ultra settings. I am getting my temp readings from both MSI Afterburner and CPUID HWMonitor. Also with this motherboard the RAM slots appear to be slightly shorter so there is no contact from my RAM to the bottom of the cooler although the cooler still does sit over the first RAM slot. RAM w/ integral heat sink is still not an option for that first slot/channel1, though I have no problem with using tall heat sinks on channel 2/slots 2&4. I cannot sing enough praises for the Raijintek Themis cooler!
Works, After a LOT of fuss.
Pros: It works. Screen is not half as bad as many online mag reviews made me think it was. At normal viewing distance it seems pretty clear to me. Seems fast enough (now that I got it unscrewed, see notes). Think this is exactly the type of product my wife was looking for.
Cons: Bugs probably due to refurb process made me almost scream for RMA a few times. Needed a complete windows reset to work properly. Seems to only accept 64gb max microSDXC cards (couldn't find details online anywhere).
Overall Review: When I first booted this thing up, it appeared to register multiple random touch-inputs all over the screen constantly. Perhaps was due to low battery from shipping even though I had it plugged in, as after letting it sit plugged in for a few hours it opened up and started setup without any random clicking. <br><br>After getting setup the first time, all programs opened extremely slow. Could not open Word or Excel. Edge and Firefox both opened some 20+ seconds after clicking on them. I finally realized there was a problem when I got errors opening Windows Store, and without that I could not install certain other programs I specifically bought this unit for. <br><br>I then did a windows reinstall from the hidden partition (F8/F10 on boot. Instruction Manual file installed on computer is wrong, telling you to select boot option is BIOS except there is no such option in the BIOS. Hold F8 or F10 (i did both, one of them worked) to enable the hidden partition boot. Proceeded to reset Windows and format drive. Took a LONG while, almost 3 hours. After it finally let me start doing the Win10 setup, get my Microsoft Account set up and get to my desktop, it now open Store no problem, is installing Office '16 no problem, is opening anything I click quite fast and doesn't seem to have a thing wrong with it now.<br><br>Was quite scared when I first started messing with this machine some 8 hours ago, what with having to deal with third-party RMA due to being a Refurb. A little persistence and patience paid off and this seems to be a very good machine for the price paid! EDIT: After about a month's ownership, I learned just how cheap the components in this device are. All it took was a half-full 20oz soda bottle being tipped over to crack the screen and render the touch-functions useless. Wasn't even a hard strike, just reaching past and having a coat-sleeve brush the bottle causing it to tip from a rest, so there was no increased force or even that much weight in the upper part of the bottle as it was only half full. Just the rim at top of bottle just below the cap struck the outside edge of the screen creating a 1/2" diameter semicircle right at the edge, but sending 3 straight running cracks out radially across the screen's shorter dimension. It does still work as a laptop only, or if I start something with the touchpad and then remove the keyboard for viewing only, but using any touchscreen function is completely out of the picture. Oh well. I guess you get what you pay for, though I am in general a fan of Acer screen products. Don't think I have have the screen replaced for much less than the purchase price.
Better than I expected for the price.
Pros: This is a full-size chair. I know the dimensions are given in the details of the item, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how large the seat cushion is and the height of the back. I was also surprised that, being 6'5", I was able to sit with my knees bent perfectly at 90* in a proper/efficient sitting position as the height of the chair has a greater adjustable range than the last few chairs I've owned. Additional benefit of the chair due to my size is that the top of the headrest sits in the perfect position for me to lay my head back to rest/nap, the "hole" shown in the photo sits centered between my shoulder blades. I do like the ability to put the arm rests up and out of the way to make for more or a workstation-chair feel and also allows me to push the chair in all the way under my desk at end of day, something I've never been able to do with previous chairs having adjustable-height arms. The base of the chair is stable and the casters roll easily even with my weight over medium-pile carpet.
Cons: -Assembly: While the instructions were clear enough (pictorial multi-step exploded diagram type with no words or poor translations to deal with), and the parts kit amazingly included one extra piece of each assembly item (screw of each size, screw covers which I did damage one so was glad to have the spare), there is a fair amount of elbow-grease needed to put this chair together. For me, that was no problem; for others, it may be a problem. As the arm rests are the mounting point for the chair-back, lining up the holes on both sides with top and bottom chair padding doing it's best to make it impossible to line up, and I did need the extra long-screw included because of cross-threading. It's not overly hard to assemble, I just feel that it could be made easier with either extended-length weld-nuts that the arm bolts screw into to make it easier to find them by feel during assembly, or perhaps a little extra stitching of the PU around the bolt holes to tighten-up the padding at those specific points. -Lumbar support: It's too low for anyone. The bottom of the lumbar support arch sits at my belt line when I'm scooted all the way back, about 5" or so above the seat pad. It isn't adjustable, its just there. At the point of that arch the back seems to just angle itself back instead of having a true lumbar supporting arch. With that arch and my bottom scooted back to use the full seat, your only sitting choices are either upright/back off the chair, or resting position leaned too far back to make using a keyboard/mouse comfortable (obviously no problem if you're using this as a gaming chair and use controllers rather than as a desk/office chair). While assembly was assembly and others may have an easier time than I did at it, the Lumbar Support issue is the ONLY reason I took 1 egg off.
Overall Review: -The back of the chair is fixed to the seat, and does not recline independently. When you recline the chair, the whole chair reclines. Doesn't make any pro/con difference to me, but maybe it will to someone else. -The padding is sufficient. I expected less than I got for the price, I am happy with the amount of padding there is. Of course there could be more, but at this price point you can only ask for so much. - As big as I am (6'5", 245lbs), I am comfortable and happy sitting in this chair for 10-16 hours every day since I've received it (12 days at time of writing). This is my primary chair for my home office/man cave, and I work from home so I'm in this chair from the time I wake up until not long before I go to sleep. As much as I would like (and probably *should* have) a proper all-day rated Big Brand Supercomfort i17000 ver. 3.2 Mega Chair, I just will not spend that kind of stupid money on such a thing when a chair such as this one serves all of my needs and is, in my opinion, a very good chair for it's price point.
Good with some issues
Pros: GREAT sound! G-keys are very handy when using a music player while gaming. Mic is very clear sounding, and the voice modulation can be entertaining.
Cons: Heavy. Vinyl coated ear pads can lead to sweating. SetPoint software is GARBAGE!!!. Have to run 3 versions of setpoint to control G930 headset, Performance MX mouse, and for "Logitech Cordless Keyboard (no M/N).
Overall Review: Bought at retail store >2 years ago now. Had no problems at all for about 18 months, then first headset stopped taking charge and would produce a loud hum/buzzing noise when turned on while plugged in. RMA'd that headset. Have now had second headset, once again great out of the box but is now starting to produce the same hum when turned on, although that hum goes away after a few seconds. Am worried I will have to try RMA'ing this second headset of the problem gets any worse.
Good, not great
Pros: Cheap, easy to install, works well for business and browsing. Very quiet card!
Cons: Not quite as good as I'd hoped. Diablo 3 on max settings has a slight flps lag, though I don't know fps numbers. WoW on ultra is about 25fps max... I expect Skyrim to do a bit better because of the physics engine, but I haven't tested it yet.
Overall Review: This card replaced a burned out Radeon HD5670 with 1gig of DDR5. The graphics this card gives in those two games mentioned above are comparable to the 5670 in quality, but not in speed. 5670 would max out WoW at about 37fps with 4x AA. To get that fps from this card I need most settings on 'good' at 1080p, although I can kick the AA up to 16x without much harm.
Disappointed
Pros: Easy to hook up and use, fit is ok. Sound is great when not using the microphone.
Cons: Hissssssss!!!! Microphone is WAY WAY WAY too sensitive for the monitor. When you mute the mic everything is fine, but unmuted it plays back EVERY noise in the house. I don't think it transmits all the noise, but I had a radio on a football game in a bedroom with the door shut, unable to hear it on it's own, but with the headphones on in the other end of the house I could hear every word coming back through the headphones. I could hear my cat's footsteps walking on tile! It is way too distracting hearing the world around you when you want headphones for an isolated gaming experience.
Overall Review: I bought these at a local big-box store, and hopefully will be exchanging them today for something else. Don't waste your money!