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Rob L.

Rob L.

Joined on 09/09/07

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Most Favorable Review

Great for the price

Kingston DataTraveler I 1GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) Model DTI/1GB
Kingston DataTraveler I 1GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) Model DTI/1GB

Pros: Transfer rates seem fine, flashed my BIOS without problems, portable, and for seven dollars I can't complain one bit.

Cons: N/A

Overall Review: Great price, great product.

12/24/2007

This case is a beast, but I really do enjoy it. It was a solid experience to build in

Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX PC Smart Case, Black, CC-9011212-WW
Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX PC Smart Case, Black, CC-9011212-WW

Pros: The space and organization features of the case are great, the door to cover the back panel to hide the wiring is a nice touch. It looks fantastic and has room for almost everything I wanted (one note in the cons about the distance between the top chassis and the top of the motherboard, a 360 AIO in Push/Pull fits but barely). Decent filters right out of the box, some nice customize touches for wanting to extend out our PSU shroud or cut it off early for better airflow. You can technically leave the back plate in to not use the extra fan slots on the back side panel but if you wanted to do that I'd just go with the 5000D. Mounting everything was fairly easy and has some play so you can get slightly different fan housings in. Motherboard fit great, cable management was pretty good, not the best, but made me do far better than I usually do.

Cons: The case is heavy. It's like, really heavy. Moving this is going to be scary with the amount of glass on it. I wish the top had an option to swap for a cover filter for top venting but preventing dust from falling in the side portions (pressure keeps everything out while it's on, if it's sleeping or shut down and you have top mounted fans you cant use the filter). I also don't really know why the back panel is glass when you can't see anything through it anyway, it could have easily been metal to help with overall weight. Another kind of meh part is the distance between the top of the chassis and the top of an ATX motherboard is limited, so if you do a Push/Pull AIO setup top mounted you have VERY limited space to work with on ASUS motherboards, others probably as well but just speaking from experience here. Those are really my only cons though.

Overall Review: Overall I think this case is great but it's a beast. I don't know how this classifies as a Mid Tower case when it's longer and a bit wider than any other mid tower I've seen. Cubic interior wise this feels like it has more room than the Full Tower cases I used to build in, but squished forward. It is heavy, and it has glass in some spots that honestly don't need to be glass (back panel could have just been aluminum. It serves no purpose for this being glass because you can't see through it except where it's cut for the fans, which is cut for the fans. Management was good, mounting was good. I'd recommend all around. It looks gorgeous setup. I never want to wire 12 RGB fans in a single build ever again in my life but it handled the 24 cables very well and I don't consider myself good at cable management. Enough room in the back to mount not one but two Corsair RGB controllers as well as the fan controller that comes with it. I took the built in RGB controller out to use one that came with a Corsair 3 pack to simplify wiring. We'll see how much I love it when it comes to keeping it clean long term, but for the time being I'm still in love with the look and happy with the purchase, especially at the price i got it.

Four years since last build, blown away!

Corsair Carbide Series 500R Arctic White Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case
Corsair Carbide Series 500R Arctic White Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case

Pros: I want to say that I was absolutely blown away with the features this case has. It was my first ground up build in about four years, I was blown away last time by my Thermaltake full tower; this time I was even more blown away with how much Corsair has done in the last few years. The cable management holes are amazing, even with the non modular PSU I bought due to a Black Friday sale. I was worried I would have cables everywhere, and that is simply not the case. The portion of the case covered by the motherboard/main components is nearly cable-less, which I imagine will be amazing for heat. Looks great, feels sturdy. I loved the 3.5 drive bays, they feel weird/cheesy at first, until you use them and realize how amazing they are. On top of that, it looks great! Plenty of room, great construction, looks amazing, easy to work with.

Cons: Only slight complaint is I could only use three PSU screws (as mentioned by another reviewer) because it was slightly out of alignment. I was able to get it in with a little prodding, but I'd imagine taking that screw out is going to be not fun. Another, smaller, complaint would be that the case has no 3.5 front bays as a result of the new layout. This meant my bonus two USB 3.0 slots from my ASRock mobo would be unusable without back mounting... that is if Corsair hadn't seen that problem and jumped right in and put two USB 3.0 slots on the front I/O panel!

Overall Review: Will update if I run into any issues, but it seems like everything is just dandy. One thing worth noting is that if you need to use your motherboards center molex connector for SLI or Crossfire you're going to be a little sad because your awesome cable stuffing is going to have a stray.

Love this heatsink

ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro - Compact Multi-Compatible Tower CPU Cooler | 92 mm PWM Fan | for AMD AM4 and Intel 115x CPU | Recommended up to 115 W TDP
ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro - Compact Multi-Compatible Tower CPU Cooler | 92 mm PWM Fan | for AMD AM4 and Intel 115x CPU | Recommended up to 115 W TDP

Pros: Amazingly quiet for how cool it runs. Looks pretty sweet in my Thermaltake Armor Series case too.

Cons: Would not fit on my ASUS Maximus Formula because of northbridge heatsinks, however that board was DOA, and it installed fine on my ASUS P5K-Deluxe board that I bought to replace it. I also don't like the new Intel heatsink mounts, but nothing this heatsink or any other can do about that really.

Overall Review: Great fan, quiet and stellar cooling all around.

12/24/2007

Great mouse pad

Thermaltake A2417 Flare Pad
Thermaltake A2417 Flare Pad

Pros: Looks good, my buddy's wife asked me why my mousepad needed blue lights, and I told her "Why not?" I either use the light full on, or full off, so haven't noticed problems with the "flickering" others have noted. Smooth pad, mouse slides easily across its 100% smooth surface.

Cons: The LED does shine a little through the middle of the pad in a faded manner. This is because the black coloring isn't applied very well in the middle. Not a huge issue, just sort a "meh" on the finer details in manufacturing.

Overall Review: Overall its amazing. I was impressed with its smooth use with my G5, and will probably buy another one of these if this one ever wears out.

12/24/2007

Excellent Optical Drive

ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T LightScribe Support
ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T LightScribe Support

Pros: Works great. Its fast in read/play/burn. LS works fine. No gripes.

Cons: N/A

Overall Review: Comes with both beige and black faceplates, black is default. You don't have to pay extra to match a non black case.

12/24/2007