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Benjamin L.

Benjamin L.

Joined on 10/20/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 45
Most Favorable Review

Quiet, stable power

CORSAIR RM Series RM650 650 W ATX12V v2.31 and EPS 2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply
CORSAIR RM Series RM650 650 W ATX12V v2.31 and EPS 2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: At idle, and during light gaming using a GTX 970, the fan remains off, and so completely silent. During heavy GPU utilization, the fan spins very slowly and quietly. There is no coil whine, or indeed any noticeable noise during operation. Being fully modular, it's easy to install and tie down each power cable individually. It makes for a very clean look.

Cons: None. I wanted a quiet PSU and it was even quieter than I expected.

Overall Review: It takes a little bit of strength to get the plugs to seat properly in the PSU, but this is comparable to other high end power supplies I've purchased (Firepower Silencer Mk III)

12/16/2014
Most Critical Review

Well, the second one was OKish

QUMAX Lynx S2-Red Red/Black 7 Buttons 1 x Wheel Wired Laser Gaming Mouse
QUMAX Lynx S2-Red Red/Black 7 Buttons 1 x Wheel Wired Laser Gaming Mouse

Pros: It's a laser mouse. It has on-the-fly DPI adjustment. It's fairly comfortable to use. It's red.

Cons: The laser tracking on the first one I had died almost immediately after plugging it in. Buttons worked, tracking was broken, so I had to pay return shipping for the RMA. The tracking also doesn't seem as accurate as my Logitech G5. The button configuration is OK, but it's a little too easy to hit the forward/back buttons on the thumb side. It feels a little cheap and light, but I expected that for the price.

Overall Review: If it had worked the first time, I would have given it four eggs for being a good value. The cost and wait for the RMA however was irritating.

Excellent Value Freesync/Gsync QHD Display

GIGABYTE G32QC 32" 165Hz 1440P Curved Gaming Monitor, 2560 x 1440 VA 1500R Display, 1ms(MPRT), 94% DCI-P3, VESA Display HDR400, FreeSync Premium Pro, 1x Display Port 1.2, 2x HDMI 2.0, 2x USB 3.0
GIGABYTE G32QC 32" 165Hz 1440P Curved Gaming Monitor, 2560 x 1440 VA 1500R Display, 1ms(MPRT), 94% DCI-P3, VESA Display HDR400, FreeSync Premium Pro, 1x Display Port 1.2, 2x HDMI 2.0, 2x USB 3.0

Pros: It's massive. I knew 32" was huge, but it did take some getting used to. Now I love the size. The Curve. I wasn't sure if I would like the curve, because I'm using this for equal parts work and play. I got used to it after just a few minutes, and now I don't want to go back. Brightness. I had to turn it down to 50%, and it's still extremely bright. The Colors. The default presets are not perfect, but it is easy to tweak them to your liking using the OSD software. It's less fun to adjust the settings using the little nubbin on the back of the display. Cables. This monitor comes with both an HDMI and a DisplayPort cable. Very handy. OSD Sidekick. A lot of reviews have very unflattering things to say about this software, but I found it to be very useful (if a little clumsy). It's a lot easier than trying to manually adjust the settings with the little joystick. Gsync. It worked right out of the box with no issues.

Cons: The Nubbin. This display doesn't have a traditional power button. Instead, they give you a multi-directional "joystick" on the back of the display. It's okay once you get used to it, but I would prefer to have a regular power button as well. HDR. It's HDR-400 so I wasn't expecting much, but it's pretty underwhelming. If high quality HDR is something important to you, look elsewhere. No height adjustment on the stand. The OSD Sidekick software could use a little polish. Lack of speakers. Not really a con for me, but some people still like speakers in their displays. Light bleed can be seen in the corners in low-light scenes, but it's not noticeable in most conditions

Overall Review: This is a terrific display for the price. Coming from 60hz, playing games like Rocket League at 165hz is like night and day. I had no idea the difference was so profound. The curve makes gaming feel quite immersive, and the OSD Sidekick made it easy for me to dial in and save the right color settings. If you're looking for a curved 32" 1440p display, it's going to be hard to beat this one at this price point. The other displays I was considering were hundreds of dollars more. I'm very happy with this display.

12/14/2020

Simple, well laid out x570 board

ASUS Prime X570-P Ryzen 3 AM4 with PCIe Gen4, Dual M.2 HDMI, SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 ATX Motherboard
ASUS Prime X570-P Ryzen 3 AM4 with PCIe Gen4, Dual M.2 HDMI, SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 ATX Motherboard

Pros: Works flawlessly from the first boot. Great bios options. No weird LED things to worry about configuring. Two m.2 slots which I needed.

Cons: I only have very minor gripes. I wish there was a USB-C port. The I/O shield is cheap featherweight metal as they often are. PCB is flexible like most motherboards.

Overall Review: Absolutely recommend this for anyone who needs a simple and affordable x570 board. I only have a week with it, but it has been flawless so far.

Quiet and Fast

MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support ATX Graphics Card GTX 1070 GAMING 8G
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support ATX Graphics Card GTX 1070 GAMING 8G

Pros: Obviously easy to install, out with the old GTX 770 and in with the new 1070. It plays everything I've tried on very high/ultra settings @1080p. The fans don't even come on when playing less demanding games like World of Warcraft, Counterstrike GO, etc. so it's completely silent. When it does need fans in more demanding applications, they are whisper quiet and somehow still manage to keep the temps (under full load) at around 67C. I can't audibly tell when the fans are on, I have to physically look. It's also a really pretty card, and matches well with a red themed motherboard. I am completely happy with this purchase.

Cons: The MSI software isn't very good. I played with it for a bit, and uninstalled it. It's not really necessary unless you want to mess with the LEDs or with MSI's performance/efficiency settings. Some people have mentioned that they're upset that the LED defaults to white. That's not a con to me, but I'm mentioning it because it might bother you.

Overall Review: I am not currently overclocking this card at all, it's running completely stock. It is not a small card, but it had no trouble fitting in a Corsair C70 (mid tower) with a full ATX board. It's also quite heavy, so be sure to secure it properly.

Faster than 7

Windows 8.1 Pro - 64-bit
Windows 8.1 Pro - 64-bit

Pros: Fast, extremely stable, excellent hardware support, easy to use. I like the menu that pops up when you right click the start menu. Software raid from Windows 7 works just fine in Win8.

Cons: The metro interface should not be the default startup screen on a desktop PC - you should be given the option to choose during installation. You need to download aftermarket (free) software to gain a familiarly functional start menu. The background images that come with the OS are inexplicably terrible quality. They did away with the option of the Windows 7 Aero interface in favor of a more bland one.

Overall Review: Despite Microsoft being obtuse and heavy-handed with their implementation of some of the more annoying Windows 8 features for desktop, this is a pretty solid OS. A few minutes spent customizing it to work more seamlessly with a desktop PC is well worth the effort.

12/16/2014