Joined on 01/21/04
Strong, solid performer.
Pros: Very fast, strong, and powerful CPU. Quiet fan. Ridiculously east to install on motherboard.
Cons: None whatsoever.
Overall Review: I've built dozens, if not hundreds, of PCs over the years, since 1989. Intel, AMD, and Cyrix CPUs. I built this to replace my wife's FX-6300 machine that seemed to be having ethernet port issues. This is the fastest machine I've built, using an Asus H170 gaming motherboard and 16 GB of DDR4 ram. I ran the Windows 7 "Experience Index" on it and it beat the score of my i7-4770 machine, probably due to superior graphics. I use onboard graphics on most of my builds, including these two. I am impressed.
It's a case. It works. It looks pretty good. It's competent, but not stellar.
Pros: Cable management, 3 fans, large feet pre-installed, once built, works well, but nothing special.
Cons: Sharp edges, cut my hand while building, no sound dampening, toolless 5-1/4" bays only, minimal accessories (no zip ties, very few extra screws), thin metal so be careful when picking it up when the side cover is off.
Overall Review: I've built in quality cases and this is nowhere near that level. I wouldn't recommend this case. There are much better cases out there for not much more, although I can't complain too much about this because it works well and generally does what it's supposed to do. It's just not much fun to build a PC in this case.
Nice case with plenty of cooling
Pros: Plenty of airflow Good quality Cable management is very good Tolerances seem nice and tight
Cons: Thin metal typical of cost-conscious case
Overall Review: Nice case, would buy again. The combination of a huge clear panel, plus excellent cable management abilities made for a VERY clean build for a customer who commented on how "awesome" (his word!) it looks.
Slight variance between two of these
Pros: Good feel, weight, and build quality
Cons: Two identical units showed noticeable differences in brightness and contrast.
Overall Review: I bought two of these for a build in which the customer wanted dual monitors. When setting up, I noticed one monitor had richer colors and darker darks and lighter lights. I reset both monitors to default settings in case they weren't already and it made no difference. One appeared a little washed out, and unless I wanted to start fiddling with settings (I didn't!) then I had to deliver them that way. I had hoped that by buying two identical monitors at the same time, I could avoid that. Otherwise, they worked perfectly and trouble-free.
Quality product
Pros: Solid quality feel Quiet Trouble-free
Cons: None
Overall Review: Boxed well, installed without a hint of misalignment or poor tolerances, turned on and just worked from the first time and every time thereafter.
You need a "G" series CPU OR a discreet graphics card.
Pros: No problems whatsoever once I installed a video card. Worked perfectly out of the box with default UEFI settings and a Ryzen 5 1600 CPU. Plenty of ports. Everything you'd expect out of a competent, quality motherboard.
Cons: You need a graphics capable CPU or a video card. Any mention of on board video means it is optional with a graphics capable CPU ONLY.
Overall Review: Having never built a Ryzen system yet (I've built hundreds of Intel and AMD Athlon PCs in the past), I was fooled by the fact it has onboard video connectors and wasn't clear about needing a graphics-capable CPU. The Ryzen 5 1600 does not have graphics capability, only CPUs that end in "G" has it. When I tried to boot, I got no video (no kidding, right?) and beep codes. I looked them up, (one long, 2 short beeps) and it means video card problem. Fortunately, I did have a basic PCIe video card on hand to try and everything worked. My bad for not researching properly, but even PCPartPicker did not alert me that I needed a video card.