Joined on 01/25/11
Great Product
Pros: Excellent performance, excellent looks. This fan is really the best I have worked with regarding these two criteria.
Cons: None, but see below.
Overall Review: I use these fans on both of my radiators, 5 fans in all. For general case cooling purposes, the highest RPM mode (plugging straight into PSU) moves a LOT of air, but in return is pretty noisy. Not whining or anything other than a clean hissing from the air turbulence. Using the included resistor makes the fan almost quiet, but airflow is hindered in my opinion way too much. I would recommend a fan controller (I built one from a simple rheostat and some 22 AWG wire).
Not very good.
Pros: This fan is very quiet, even at full power...
Cons: ...Because it barely moves any air. Just using my hand, the exhaust side felt no different than the intake side.
Overall Review: I had to get this fan because I didn't have enough room for a 25mm thick fan (such as the Spectre Pro). That one moves much more air than the regular Spectre, so if you have room for it, you might as well get the Pro.
Excellent situational solution
Pros: I purchased this board to go in my music production rig (also used for backups). It has everything I needed, slots for my graphics card (x16), network adapter (x1) and audio interface (PCI). I have my SSD boot drive in the 6gb/s SATA plug, which is from the chipset and therefore not gimped at all. Currently using 2x8GB RAM and a Xeon E3-1230 V2, and the performance is only matched by the stability. No BIOS issues.
Cons: None really. I was going to say some things pertaining to chipset limitations but honestly the price reflects the fact that this is B75, and I'm perfectly OK with that. Another reviewer mentioned how tight the power connectors fit, I recently did a transplant and my 24-pin took *a lot* of effort to remove.
Overall Review: I read some of the negative ratings for this board, and while it looks like there's a few DOAs, a lot of people don't realize that of course you cannot overclock, and of course you don't have SRT . Please do research on the product before buying!
I miss Asus
Pros: PCI Slot (Yes, some people still use those!) The other various pros regarding power delivery that you can read from all the other reviews of this board.
Cons: The UEFI. Good heavens, where to begin. when you first enter it, it loads up a big picture of a motherboard and you have to click on various parts of it to go to a "relevant" menu. I do not know who thought this was a good idea. It can't even render smoothly because there's not nearly enough graphics power at this part of the boot sequence!
Overall Review: I came to this board from a Rampage IV Gene that crapped out (and I didn't like the form factor anyways). I did a fresh install of windows onto my system and now I can't even get into UEFI when I have more than one monitor plugged in. It's a real pain to have to unplug my other three monitors when I want to change OC settings, boot order, or when I get an "Overclocking Failed" error message, which, by the way, I started getting right from the start, even before I touched anything! My advice to Gigabyte: Focus on making your UEFI functional before adding all sorts of bells and whistles that actually hinders user experience anyways. My advice to consumers: After experiencing the X79 iteration of the Asus ROG boards, I cannot recommend this product.
It's the best out there but that's not saying much
Pros: Compared to other Keurig models on the market, this is the best. I've owned several different Keurig models and this one lasted the longest (and has the best feature-set). Very good warranty. And don't worry, you will use it, many many times.
Cons: These darn machines die way too quickly. I brew around 6 cups a day, and I have yet to own a machine that lasts a full year. Just one year! I do not want to have to run 60 oz. of vinegar (plus 60 more to rinse) through a kitchen appliance every month just to keep the pump from burning out.
Overall Review: Paying $200 for a kitchen appliance that brews average-quality coffee is bad enough, but the fact that these machines are made with low-quality parts is just a slap to the face unfortunately.
Disappointing
Pros: Having the USB used for powering the fans double as a two-port hub is a nice idea. Temperatures are also satisfactory now.
Cons: First off, there's no Cooler Master branding in the images, but there's a label right on the top-front of the stand. If you don't mind branding, then no biggie, but the product images really should be updated. This thing is FLIMSY. I was afraid I was going to break it just taking it out of the packaging. I understand they were shooting for lightness and thinness, but perhaps using materials other than plastic would have helped... The fans sound like tractors. Even on lowest settings. It's the kind of growl you hear on fans with extremely cheap bearings, or at least bearings that have gone shot. The "elegant metal cover" is paper-thin, and looks like the sort of rough aluminum used in making baseball bats (but again, extremely thin).
Overall Review: All-in-all, this is a $30 laptop cooler. It keeps my Zenbook within acceptable ranges even while the machine is driving two external displays and compiling (it doubles as an on-the-go ultrabook and my Linux testing workstation at home). I did expect a bit more from Coolermaster, something along the lines of the build quality of their keyboards, but this thing really is underwhelming, and it might be worth the extra few bucks to look elsewhere for something more durable and quiet.