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Terrence S.

Terrence S.

Joined on 08/09/09

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

It didn't catch fire

EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card 02G-P4-3660-RX
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card 02G-P4-3660-RX

Pros: Works without issue, came packed securely, cheaper than a new one... kind of? Runs no hotter than 75c inside of a CM HAF XB case even after a 1 hour stress test, and didn't run past 50% fan speed which I wasn't able to hear, 80% on the other hand... at least it doesn't default to that speed

Cons: The 2x PCIe power connector placement is a bit off being in the center of the card, but the GPU board itself is pretty short. Not really a con, but what you see is what you get; no extra stuff that normally comes with new cards, you get the card and literally nothing else aside from the box its shipped in. Mine has a small bit of scuffing on the fan shroud along the bottom edge of the card, someone must have been a bit rough installing it beforehand~

Overall Review: First time spending more than $200 on a video card, and I think it's still a bit much, but it runs Sleeping Dogs quite well with most of the detailed featured turned up (Haven't bothered to experiment with which features actually kill performance). I mainly got it to run dual 2560x1440 monitors over DL DVI, but not able to test that just yet~ Make sure you get a decent power supply to run the higher end cards; I got this running on a CX600 with a overclocked i5 2500k and 4HDD+1SSD with no stability problems.

Most Critical Review

Dead after 13 months

Team F108 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (Golden) TG032GF108N3
Team F108 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (Golden) TG032GF108N3

Pros: Looks nice... well, different. It's a USB drive? Faster than USB 2.0 drives... somewhat.

Cons: Physically bigger than other drives I used (this isn't going to take up 2 ports though) Gets a bit warm after use since it's encased in metal.

Overall Review: I didn't use it much, just left it plugged into my desktop a lot of the time when I got it back in april of 2012. May 2013 and tried copying 27GB of files to it, Windows gives some weird error about files missing, and it goes into a read-only state after a eject and reconnect. None of the possible fixes I looked up/tried fixed anything and it's effectively dead to me. Least it didn't take out any useful files because I can't access half the folders on it either. If you want to take it apart, pry the clear plastic off the back with a small screwdriver where you'd attach a lanyard, and the internals will fall out the other end. Least the shell's reusable :D

Please upgrade to an SSD

ASUS Laptop Intel Core i5-4200U 6GB Memory 750GB HDD Intel HD Graphics 4400 15.6" Touch Screen Windows 8 64-Bit Q501LA-BBI5T03
ASUS Laptop Intel Core i5-4200U 6GB Memory 750GB HDD Intel HD Graphics 4400 15.6" Touch Screen Windows 8 64-Bit Q501LA-BBI5T03

Pros: Overall nice and classy design, 140PPI IPS display, nice batery life, decent touchscreen, backlit keyboard, easy* to crack open and upgrade. Standard ethernet port

Cons: HDD, 6GB RAM, WiFi... these are end user solvable, though. No VGA (I don' need this why am I even listing it?)

Overall Review: My refurb came in with no stuck pixels and no wonky touchscreen (unlike the one I got from the bay), but did come with the silly 2.4GHz only WiFi card. Upgraded to a 7260AC card with no issues (Yay Asus for not locking the BIOS down). 4GB of LPDDR3 is soldered to the motherboard, but you do get a slot to add in your own ram (up to 8GB I'd assume, you can go buy a 16GB stick and try if you like, ha). 2GB seems like a silly number to include, why not just add in a 4 and make it 8GB out the box? 750GB (699.xx GB usable in Windows) HDD is pokey if you're used to SSDs, but this will take a standard 2.5mm SSD/SSHD up to 9.5mm high, no spacer required for anything more shallow, there's an actual bracket to mount in your own (I used an 256GB 830 I pulled from my 4+ year old laptop and did a clean install with a Windows 8 DVD. No serial key to worry about as with newer machines, it's built into the BIOS. The 4200U with the HD 4400 GPU driving the 1920x1080 display doesn't cause any issues with standard workloads like email, web browsing, youtube, remote desktop. Works fine for most indie gaming, but anything 3D heavy you'll have to turn down some settings for (I personally prefer running native resolution and turning the settings all the way down). Upgrading requires removing ~12 screws and undoing plastic latches that you'll most likely break, but since the screws are along the outside edge, breakinh them doesn't seem to do much. Plus you also have easy access to cleaning the heatsink and repasting should the thermal paste fail. -1 Egg for HDD as default.

No Latch SATA Cables

Coboc Model SC-SATA3-18-GR 18" SATA III 6Gb/s Data Cable,UV Green
Coboc Model SC-SATA3-18-GR 18" SATA III 6Gb/s Data Cable,UV Green

Pros: Actually UV reactive, snug fit so they aren't pulled out accidentally (well, easily).

Cons: They don't route themselves... Shipping.

Overall Review: Cables are cables, ordered 8 at once and they came individually wrapped and tied. I mainly got these because they don't have locking latches on them, which removes the headache of stacked SATA ports and trying to use latched cables (in short, isn't happening as the bottom one will fall out because there's nothing holding it in), and they are moreso "friction fit". I never understood why you need a lock on them anyway. I would have gotten separate colors, but I would have had to pay double the shipping...? That's kind of silly.

11/24/2013

Perfect Basic Keyboard

Microsoft Keyboard 200 6JH-00001 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard
Microsoft Keyboard 200 6JH-00001 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard

Pros: Standard key layout with no extra keys to mess with anything else in the system Light but mostly solid feel No extra software gets installed on connection (like some of Microsoft's more expensive boards that have extra features)

Cons: Won't win you any office competitions that involve the use of this keyboard as a bat of sorts; you'd only get one real shot before it possibly breaks~

Overall Review: Its not entirely black as stated in an earlier review, but you need 6500k lighting to tell the difference easily, it's a dark navy blue under that light temperature. It has the new Windows icon for the start key and the Microsoft logo is written in their new font, bet you wouldn't have noticed that on your own~

Runs faster than it should

Wintec AMPO 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model 3AMD31333-8G2K-R
Wintec AMPO 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model 3AMD31333-8G2K-R

Pros: Standard profile RAM with no absurdly large heatspeader to block "Standard" tower heatsinks Nice shade of green on the heatspreader matches the RAM PCB underneath RAM is RAM, you find your speed and pick how you want it to look from there.

Cons: Could be cheaper? Meh. I got it when it was $40 dollars

Overall Review: Ran this set at its stock speed of 1333 for a few months, got a 1600 set a few months later and decided to see if this could match it, and its been running a bit over 1600 with no stability issues and no noticeable increase in heat at the same timings (I haven't tried lowering them). My motherboard seems to give it 1.53v instead of straight 1.5 so that might be helping the overclock.