cover
Christopher C.

Christopher C.

Joined on 10/08/05

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 15
Most Favorable Review

Very nice value LED strips

HitLights Non-Waterproof Cool White SMD3528 LED Light Strip - 300 LEDs, 16.4 Ft Roll, Cut to length - 5000K, 72 Lumens per foot, Requires 12V DC, IP30
HitLights Non-Waterproof Cool White SMD3528 LED Light Strip - 300 LEDs, 16.4 Ft Roll, Cut to length - 5000K, 72 Lumens per foot, Requires 12V DC, IP30

Pros: Very small/thin strip that wont take up much room, and extremely bright given their size.

Cons: The description says it comes with both a power supply and a dimmer dial, but it does not come with either. For the price I didn't expect anything more than just the LEDs, but the description should be fixed to indicate that both are sold separately and are not included.

Overall Review: Bought to go under cabinets above a desk to give some reading light without having to turn on ceiling lights which are much brighter, strain the eyes and use a lot more energy. These are perfect for that task.

Most Critical Review
GIGABYTE 7PESH4 SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 DDR3 1600/1333/1066
GIGABYTE 7PESH4 SSI EEB Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 DDR3 1600/1333/1066

Pros: Lots of features for low price, Quad NICs + onboard Management make for good virtual host.

Cons: While the specs list supported CPUs as "E5-2600" family if you were unlucky like I was, and get a board without an updated BIOS, Ivy Bridge CPUs will NOT boot on this board. Now I have to find a Sandy Bridge CPU just to boot and update the BIOS before it will be usable. IPMI event logging only lists errors for fans missing or low speed (not all fan headers had fans on them.) but no errors about an incompatible or missing CPU. I thought I had plugged something in wrong or the board was DOA. Wasn't until I noticed there was an updated BIOS for Ivy support, which was newer than the firmware for BMC.

Overall Review: Wishing IPMI allowed you to update the motherboard bios, since IPMI is working fine. Hoping this gets me more visibility from Gigabyte support as it has been 2 days and I don't even have confirmation that they even received the ticket.

Much quieter than I expected

SeaSonic SS-250SU 250W 250W 1U 80+ Bronze Certified APFC Power Supply
SeaSonic SS-250SU 250W 250W 1U 80+ Bronze Certified APFC Power Supply

Pros: I always heard 1U PSUs would be loud due to the fan size and speed, but I was pleasantly surprised by how quiet this beast was. Instead of a whiny buzz we get a gentle *woosh*. Its going into a rack away from human ears, but it could easily be put in a normal use computer and not annoy someone.

Cons: Slightly long cables, but only because I put it in a shallow depth mITX case. Had enough room to fit all of them without modification but I had to get inventive. Better to have too much than not long enough though.

Powerhouse low power CPU

Intel Pentium G3258 - Pentium Haswell Dual-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1150 53W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80646G3258
Intel Pentium G3258 - Pentium Haswell Dual-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1150 53W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80646G3258

Pros: Cheap, low power, supports ECC RAM. Stays cool.

Cons: I understand Pentium is meant to be "lower" than an i3, but I would have liked to see it have a higher stock clock speed even if just 3.4GHz. I know it doesn't turbo or have hyper-threading but on a server board with less or completely absent overclocking ability even a 200Mhz bump would have been nice.

Overall Review: Bought for a low power virtual host, and it has been more than enough for my needs. Put in a decent supermicro motherboard with 16GB of ECC means I can easily upgrade to a Xeon if I need more power, but this CPU means I can save my money and still get good enough performance and not have to spend a ton on electricity each month. Whole setup with 3 HDDs and one SSD uses a grand total of 50w at the wall. Max.

High Quality Budget PSU

Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Intel Haswell Fully Compatible
Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Intel Haswell Fully Compatible

Pros: Doesn't come with a power cable, so you can actually make use of that pile of computer power cables you have accumulated over time, or perfect to replace a PSU in a computer whose just died. Quiet.

Cons: The sections of cables between SATA/Molex ends are a bit long, but the length from the PSU to the first one could be longer. This could cause the first plug to be unusable depending on the size of your case. Its obvious Antec meant this to be a replacement PSU for smaller MicroATX cases but it would be nice if the leads had a few more inches for their reach. This is literally my only complaint.

Overall Review: Contains one 80mm fan on the back, and air intake is on the opposite side, not on the bottom or top of the PSU. I like this personally since it can be flipped and not be suffocated. This also means the fan is less likely to fight with another fan if the CPU cooler is close to the bottom of the PSU.

Upgrade from 260/216

MSI GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N470GTX-M2D12-B
MSI GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N470GTX-M2D12-B

Pros: Very powerful. Paired with an OCd i3, can run Metro 2033 at 50+ frame rates. Mostly 60FPS, but it does dip (i blame the i3) Folding Powerhouse, getting 15k PPD @1530 shader. I love this card. Nice and small, seems a bit shorter than my 260, which was surprising, but now i have more room in my mATX case. Runs Crysis maxed at good fps too :P

Cons: Runs somewhat hot and noisy with stock cooler. NO WHERE NEAR AS HOT OR LOUD AS I HAD EXPECTED. Im still happily upset about this. Fermis may run hot, but not hotter than anything that has been out before. load temps @80C while folding. @75% fan.

Overall Review: USE MSI AFTERBURNER!!! And make a custom profile for the fan, it is very worth it. Your 470 will thank you. I had been getting 95C+ load temps, but fan stays at 40%. now it increases with temp, as it should, as well as AB is great for overclocking. Also, dont make the same mistake i did, dont waste the nzone key on RE5. it is a broken game.