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Jason D.

Jason D.

Joined on 11/12/11

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 2
Most Favorable Review

Driver frustration but it worked in the end

XFX Speedster MERC 319 AMD RX 6950 XT Black Gaming Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6 RX-695XATBD9
XFX Speedster MERC 319 AMD RX 6950 XT Black Gaming Graphics Card with 16GB GDDR6 RX-695XATBD9

Pros: Seems great so far for non-ray traced 4K gaming. HDMI 2.1 support

Cons: Lack of documentation from XFX. Lack of information on dual firmware DIP switch settings. Lack of guidance on AMD driver compatibility and best practices from XFX and/or AMD for driver installation and troubleshooting.

Overall Review: This 6950 XT is an upgrade for my XFX Radeon VII card. My example had the dual firmware DIP switch set 'wrong'. This led to the system having no video out signal, taking several hours of troubleshooting the overall system and GPU to identify the DIP switch as the culprit. Make sure it is flipped toward the power cables. The AMD driver ecosystem is still frustrating especially when it competes with Windows Update. Z bracket adds an extra cm to the card length and can conflict with the case PCI card mounting assembly (in my case, the unused vertical GPU mount assembly will need to be modified to close the case rear).

Impressive TV, not legacy friendly

Samsung EH6000 series 46" 1080p 120Hz LED-LCD HDTV w/ 240CMR UN46EH6000FXZA
Samsung EH6000 series 46" 1080p 120Hz LED-LCD HDTV w/ 240CMR UN46EH6000FXZA

Pros: Samsung is a quality manufacturer. As a holiday sale purchase, this TV was an exceptional value. Very sleek and narrow bezel design. As normal for these LED TVs, extremely light (40 lbs) compared to the plasma TV it replaced. Impressive display as expected.

Cons: The limited input ports (2 HDMI connections, combined component/AV connection) made it very difficult to connect my older stereo system and other peripherals. A few more legacy connections would have made this a perfect basic HDTV, as not everything is 1080p yet.

Overall Review: Not sure how the industry standards have changed, as my last TV dates from 2005, but the manuals provided were very spartan and difficult to read.