cover
Mark S.

Mark S.

Joined on 08/04/04

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 24
Most Favorable Review

Beautiful sound, minimalist features, some audio lag

HT  OMEGA CLARO Plus+ 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card
HT OMEGA CLARO Plus+ 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Card

Pros: Can't question the build quality, or the gorgeous sound. HT Omega seems to be capable of actually providing drivers for, say, Windows 7, unlike a certain uncreative company I could name.

Cons: The software drivers provide far fewer useful/entertaining processing options than the competition; if you're into fine-grained control, wierd configurations, or unusual effects, you'll be disappointed. Worst part for me: audio input lag. If you plug a guitar into the line input, and try to play along with music, everything you play will be delayed by something like 20-50 ms -- totally unusable. This is not an issue with some other boards.

Most Critical Review

Went bad in six weeks of light use

ADATA Premier SP600 2.5" 32GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) ASP600S3-32GM-C
ADATA Premier SP600 2.5" 32GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) ASP600S3-32GM-C

Pros: It's an SSD, and it was in-stock.

Cons: Worked fine under Linux -- I made sure to move everything write-intensive (swap, /tmp, /var, /home) off to a hard drive array. Still, after six weeks, I suddenly couldn't boot the machine due to hard drive errors. Disappointed -- this cost me way more in fix time than it would have cost to buy a more expensive name-brand SSD.

Best computer speakers out there

Corsair Gaming Audio Series SP2500 High-power 2.1 PC Speaker System
Corsair Gaming Audio Series SP2500 High-power 2.1 PC Speaker System

Pros: Nice looking, and very powerful. Compared these side by side with an Altec Lansing system, and they have much flatter EQ. Usual excellent Corsair quality, these are built to last.

Cons: Remote control not exactly intuitive to operate.

Overall Review: Just had a laugh at the guy who claimed these speakers fried an expensive gaming PC, alleging that when they went bad "they even took out the power supply". Ever thing that maybe the power supply failed and took out the speakers?

Not cheap, but quite powerful

Intel Core i7-3930K - Core i7 3rd Gen Sandy Bridge-E 6-Core 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Desktop Processor - BX80619i73930K
Intel Core i7-3930K - Core i7 3rd Gen Sandy Bridge-E 6-Core 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Desktop Processor - BX80619i73930K

Pros: My first hex-core, and I'm pleased. Overclocked very easily without even raising the voltage.

Cons: None so far.

One great sealed water-cooler

CORSAIR Hydro Series H80i High Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler. 120mm
CORSAIR Hydro Series H80i High Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler. 120mm

Pros: This is the first sealed water-cooling unit I've ever bought, and it's a nice change from the full-on pump/radiator/reservoir/heatsink/tubing grind. Knowing Corsair quality is top-notch, I have no worries about this breaking or leaking anytime soon. Normally this runs the fan on low for quietude, but when I do something very CPU-demanding you can hear the fans slowly crank up. Keeps my temps under 60 degrees, which is pretty good for an overclocked Intel hex-core chip. Very happy with this unit.

Cons: None so far.

True workhorse hard drives

Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: I just keep buying more and more of these, with no issues at all. Truly fast, and pretty quiet.

Cons: None really.