Pros: The quality of this monitor is really high. I bought mine almost three years ago and it still works just as well as when I got it. I still don't have any dead pixels, it is still as luminous as day one, and it is sturdy. People have talked about the stand not being strong enough. I entirely disagree. I think that it is just fine. When I type or play games I don't turn my desk into an earthquake zone so I have never noticed any wobbling during practical use. If you violently shake your desk when using your computer then maybe you should look for a monitor that you can mount to your wall. If not, then you don't have to worry about the integrity of this stand. The base of it is heavy enough and has enough surface area to keep this monitor upright. It is also easy to adjust the colors, brightness, contrast, gamma, etc. to suit your needs. I don't have any bleeding anywhere either. I have had a couple other monitors that were both backlit and not backlit and this is the best on of all of them. I use my monitors all day with engineering school work, gaming, watching shows and movies, working on art and music, looking at explicit material on the internet, etc. Basically I use my monitor a lot and to have it going strong with no issues for 3 years makes me feel like I invested my money well.

Cons: I don't have any cons. I spent less than $150 for a monitor and I like what I received. Monitor speakers are usually awful so I didn't want one with those. Plus it says there are no speakers so how could not having speakers be a con? Also I didn't spend $350 so I don't expect IPS monitor quality. Getting a monitor with this quality at the < $150 price point is not a con.

Overall Review: I think most of the people who nitpick about things are ignorant. They wanted a monitor with a specific quality and don't read before they buy only to complain as if it is the company's fault. They try to use features on a < $150 monitor instead of using those same features on their > $500 computer and complain about the quality? That is baffling to me. They talk about wanting to spend as little money as possible but then are disappointed in the product because it isn't as good as a monitor they used once somewhere that is actually twice as expensive. Basically, know what you need, what you are willing to spend, what you can get for what you spend, and then read about the product to see if it fills your needs. If you aren't willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for a high end monitor like me then don't be so upset when you buy a monitor and it doesn't perform like a high end monitor.

Pros: -lots of space -a lot of airflow upgradeability (i made that word up to suit my needs) -LEDs are a nice glow rather than a spotlight -nice cable management set up -easy to add drives -comes with filters -durable -lots of space inside to fit any graphics card or heatsink -comes with plenty of fans for adequate airflow

Cons: -the white can scuff a little if you move your tower as often as i do (i take mine to LANs) but that is bound to happen with anything white so not worth an egg. -the LEDs on the fan control are starting to fizzle out and i think that one of them is only picking up residual light from the one next to it. i always thought LEDs were supposed to have ridiculous lifetimes. -one of the rubber feet on the bottom came off and fell apart so my case has a minor wobble to it and doesnt grip near the back as well. the glue for these should probably be better. -the HDD trays are rather rigid so getting my HDDs in was a rather tedious task.

Overall Review: It takes a lot to get 5 eggs from me. 4 eggs is most people's 5. There were the few minor issues I have with the LED and the rubber grip, but other than that I am extremely pleased. There is so much space inside and the room they included for routing cables is awesome to improve the airflow. I did end up purchasing an NZXT 120mm fan for the front just so there would be more cool air entering my case, but that is super cheap. If you want to make it a wind tunnel you can get 2 more big'ns for the top and the side, but i dont think its necessary since it already has pretty good airflow. On top of that the fans are SUPER quiet. It is a full tower but it is not as tall as other fulls. The length and width are definitely full tower size. For me that is a plus because I have no use for space I can't utilize. There is more than enough room for those long GPUs. Just wish I could get the extra parts to repair the minor issues I have.

Pros: ...this is indeed a great card...

Cons: but some people are being misleading in here.

Overall Review: You CANNOT max everything out at full resolution on almost any game and have a playable frame rate. In Half Life 2: The Lost Coast I ran the benchmarking tool and got an average of 56.7 fps when everything maxed out and at full resolution. However on SC2 I turned everything up and got an average of about 14 fps at full resolution. 14 fps is not good enough framerate for me. If you maxed out everything in Crysis I can promise that you might skip along below 10 fps. people get excited over new toys and thus tend to exaggerate a lot. Don't get it twisted, this is a mid level card and functions as such. It isnt the 6950, its the 6850. Don't expect to pay less than $200 and get a card that can handle everything no problem. This is really an awesome card for the price. I still highly recommend it. I just don't want people to make a decision based on misleading reviews.

Pros: -cost:performance this thing is great and worth every penny -easy to tweak and overclock. sapphire left a lot of room for you to toy around -very low power consumption -after significantly overclocking this card to the brink of a system crash i was still only getting temps around 32C idle and 57C under full load and maxed out graphics on SC2. keep in mind i have yet to get any after market cooling for my cpu and case. it will only stay cooler. my apartment is also about 70F too which keeps it warmer. i also kept the fan on the card manually set at 75%. -its small. i can guarantee a mid size case could handle it. -it is really quiet. i pushed the fan to 100% and although it is clearly audible, it is relatively quiet for the amount of cooling it does.

Cons: for how much it was hyped i was a bit disappointed. i can throw SC2 at it on ultra settings and full resolution and i can play, but it isnt a framrate that allows me to really enjoy a game. i would say it drops to about 16 - 25 fps even after being overclocked. it isnt that it should be better, just that it was a little too talked up. i was slightly disappointed at the performance when set at medium settings when a graphically intensive gaming situation comes up. it struggled to handle shadows and edges even under 8xAA (16xAA causes a bit too much of a drop in framerate for me to use it).

Overall Review: all in all, for the price i paid this card is well worth the cost. the cons are more because the hype than the card. i really only give 5 eggs to something that really really wows me though. 4 eggs seems pretty darn good to me. i had intended on getting a second one and crossfiring it but i made a noob mistake and bought the wrong MOBO which was not the crossfire capable one that i meant to get. returning it was too much of a hassle so i am fine until i want to upgrade my CPU when AM3+ comes out. make sure you have a crossfire capable MOBO because for the cost of each card it is so worth it. there is something special about the HD6800 series. they are great alone but drastically better when in crossfire. NZXT Phantom White ASUS M4A87TD/USB 3.0 Lite-On SATA CD/DVD RW AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE 3.4 GHz G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333MHz 8Gb (2 x 4Gb) Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1Gb WD Caviar Black 640Gb SATA 6.0 Gb/s HDD WD Caviar Green 75Gb SATA HDD Kingwin Mach-1 1000W 80 Plus Bronze PS

Pros: USB 3.0 SATA 6Gb/s both help keep money in your pocket by ensuring this board will continue to keep up with technology Compatible with all sorts of components.

Cons: I will find out.

Overall Review: I ordered this board for a new build because I wanted to be able to utilize higher tier components without spending a ton on a MOBO that really would only increase the size of my e-peen. I haven't received it yet but it is due here after the weekend. A lot of people complain about compatibility. My suggestion is to both go to the ASUS website and get the .pdf list of compatible components before making a purchase and also speaking with the company that makes the component you want and ask them if they have tested for compatibility. I know that I went to the Asus page and didn't see the RAM I had planned on buying and almost scrapped the idea. But I called Asus since the RAM is newer than the card to ask if there was an update. They advised to call the company that makes the RAM (G.Skill) and ask if they tested it. Turns out that it is compatible even though it isn't listed. In my case this worked out. But if it were not to then this 10 minute process would've saved a lot of heartache.

Pros: Hex-core processor with above average overclocking potential for under $300. Very stable and cool with even more voltages which is typical of an AMD CPU Easily could have this processor for years and still have a top performing PC since 6 cores aren't even fully utilizable yet. Haven't really played around too much with it but if i put time into tweaking then i think i could get a stable 4.3ghz or 4.4 ghz. i just dont have the time and with the speed of this already with only simple tweaks hitting 4.0 i don't feel all that rushed. You can really multitask anything you throw at this. But that is to be expected with the top AMD processor right now.

Cons: Really not that much different from the 1090T and costs almost $50 more. Under load it sucks a decent amount of power, but if you're buying this i really hope you arent naive enough to think it wouldnt.

Overall Review: The unfortunate thing about buying this now is that AMD has been teasing us with a release of the new AM3+ line which will have 8-core and 12-core CPUs. But in reality why do you need all those cores? Nothing would utilize it. Still you are buying this to have a top of the line CPU and it will soon be as top of the line as the X4s are right now. Also, there isnt a comparable Intel processor to this right now. The price of the Intels in the same performance tier are much higher. But they also function differently. You can't really compare them too much. In terms of the price:performance ratio AMD beats Intel. They dont have a CPU that could compete with a top i7, but those are also vastly more expensive. Unlike what i read another reviewer say, this CPU will outperform the Intel i7 870 (2.93ghz) after tweaking which im sure you would do with either if you bought them. In the end though its still preference. I used Radeon so i choose AMD. If you choose nVidia Intel is more symbiotic.