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Michael K.

Michael K.

Joined on 01/12/06

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 10
Most Favorable Review

Excellent Board for casual gamer.

MSI Gaming 970 Gaming AM3+/AM3 AMD 970 and SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
MSI Gaming 970 Gaming AM3+/AM3 AMD 970 and SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Slick board, great features, worked perfectly out of the box.

Cons: Crossfire/SLI gimped but you did not see this board if you were looking for a multi-GPU platform.

Overall Review: I wanted to do this review for one reason and one reason only. The manual clearly indicates that slots 2 and 4 of the DIMMS should be populated for Dual channel memory. This is completely incorrect, slots 1 and 3 need to be populated for dual channel memory.

Most Critical Review

Black Screen

EVGA 512-P3-N865-AR GeForce 9600GT KO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
EVGA 512-P3-N865-AR GeForce 9600GT KO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Pros: when It worked...It worked good

Cons: Had the black screen problems so many others have complained about. cost me shipping and Restocking fee to return it. and now am unable to do anything other than wait for a different card I had to order to arrive.

Excellent CPU

AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 - Athlon 64 X2 Kuma Dual-Core 2.7 GHz Socket AM2+ 95W black edition Processor - AD775ZWCGHBOX
AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 - Athlon 64 X2 Kuma Dual-Core 2.7 GHz Socket AM2+ 95W black edition Processor - AD775ZWCGHBOX

Pros: Huge bang for the buck, went from my aging 939 platform to this and could not be happier. Overclock potential is great. Runs 1066 memory speed unlike any other AMD dual core

Cons: stock cooler is terrible if you plan to even do a small overclock. I live in Florida so it's naturally harder for me to keep temps as low as I would like, but even so running 2.8 GHZ with the stock cooler on full load the temps were hitting above 50C. Get a nice cooler to go with this chip if you plan on taking advantage of it's potential

Can't go wrong

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm Ceramic CPU Cooler
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 64 Pro 92mm Ceramic CPU Cooler

Pros: Works like a charm, I saw massive drops in peak temperature vs stock cooler. Running Prime 95 stock cooler 48C - 52C Running Prime 95 Freezer 40C - 41C Those were stock speeds on a AMD 7750 Bumped the speed up to 3 GHZ and temps still never got higher than 42C, now it's time to get dirty and really see how much I can push it for. Price is astounding for an excellent product.

Cons: Clip is cheesy, while it seems to be locked down solid it did not have that positive feel that the clips were in place and locked down.

Overall Review: If you can, polish up the base on this bad boy and use some good thermal paste. I had mine smooth to a mirror finish using a jewelers buffing wheel before I installed it.

Beyond Expectation

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Upgraded USB 3.0
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Upgraded USB 3.0

Pros: Very sturdy, excellent quality, quiet operation ( I run all the fans at the highest settings and could not be happier with the sound level ) great airflow, nice clean lines and appearance, low cost

Cons: Well I'm not sure why the second drive bay has a large plastic cover like thing on it, ( to hold an additional fan ) but you cant take it off permanently ( unless you were to cut the thing to let the fan power and speed controller wires free of it, and is a bit of a pain to un-clip to get a drive into the bay. Did not come with enough stand-offs and screws to use every mounting hole on the motherboard but again it's not a issue to worry about.

Excellent

Acer 22" Active Matrix, TFT LCD WSXGA LCD Monitor with HDCP support 5 ms 1680 x 1050 D-Sub, DVI-D AL2216Wbd
Acer 22" Active Matrix, TFT LCD WSXGA LCD Monitor with HDCP support 5 ms 1680 x 1050 D-Sub, DVI-D AL2216Wbd

Pros: Bright display with nice presets for applications and graphics. Solid stand and sharp display.

Cons: Compared to my 19" widescreen it is lacking a little bit of sharpness but is so minor it's almost undetectable.

Overall Review: Beautiful product, excellent price, I am very satisfied with it.