Joined on 11/17/07
Great PSU, expensive though
Pros: -Good power. 56A on 12V. -Looks nice -LCD with button to change colors (red/white/blue) and turn off. -Black sleeved LONG cables that look good. -Runs cool and quiet for the most part, it has a slight humming noise that isn't audible over my quiet PC. Most people probably wouldn't notice. Runs an i7 2600k, OC 4.7Ghz 1.36Vcore 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 2x PowerColor HD6850's CF 7x Case fans, 2 CPU Cooler fans, 3GPU Cooler fans(and its own PSU fan) so it runs.. 13 fans total, none smaller than 120mm, except the 3 GPU fans 1x Fan controller 1x SATA DVD Combo drive 2x Crucial M4 SATA III SSD's 1xWD Caviar Green 5400rpm HD 1xXonar DG Sound Card/Headphone Amplifier 3x+- USB devices on a ASUS P8P67 Pro rev 3.1
Cons: -A tad expensive. I was looking for a 750+ watt for my crossfire setup, but I settled for this for 115$ at Best Buy. My second option was a ThermalIntake Black Widow 850 Watt which is modular but I regret not getting that instead.
Overall Review: I originally bought a Corsair CX600 and ran this system on it. Worked fine until I installed the second card. Everything turned off when I started AS:Revelations (after 24 hours of use) the PSU didn't fail but the MB and CPU are fried. Never found out why but pretty sure it was insufficient power, or a faulty PSU or MB. Should've gotten the GS800 for my particular situation but I didn't research first. But the GS700 works for low powered cards like the 6850. Two of them only pull a little over 200 watts at load. One 460 pulls that itself. So I would recommend it but make sure you researh first.
Great case but some cheap components
Pros: -Great cable management -Tons of room, will fit anything -Great airflow -Quiet fans
Cons: -Tool-less design is flimsy but it holds okay. -Front USB port quality is abysmal. -I planned on having this case for YEARS(it's $150!)and I have had this case for less than ONE MONTH and one of the front USB slots completely broke and has never been tugged on or any kind of user error. I pulled out my USB keyboard and the plug ripped out the inside of the port. Never had this happen before with this keyboard or any other USB component or port EVER. I have not contacted CoolerMaster yet but I'm sure
Overall Review: It really ticks me off that the usb port is made of such low quality material that it broke from nothing. It's not normal wear and tear because it's only ONE MONTH old. I don't want to pay for return shipping on a 30lb case so i can live with 3 USB ports for a case I paid $160 and some change for!!! I will contact CoolerMaster on Monday and if they can fix the problem than I can honestly change this review back to 5 stars.. but something this expensive should not break like that...
Excellent SSD!!!!
Pros: -SPEED -Price/Size ratio is good. -DOUBLE the speeds in Raid 0 -Reliable -Unparalleled firmware support(0009) update improved speeds 30% for me. -517mb/s Sequential Read Speed 205mb/s Sequential Write Speed In RAID 0 1022mb/s Read 217mb/s Write
Cons: -Takes a little tweaking to set up an SSD for the first time, but once you get it figured all out and get it runnning in top speed it's worth it. It's fairly new technology so you can't expect seamless plug and play.
Overall Review: I have never owned a high performance hard drive, when I built my new PC, I was going strictly for budget and had a WD Caviar Green 5400RPM Drive. It was $50 at the time so it did it's job well. Now it's my other drive. I finally upgraded to an i7 2600k,new ASUS p8p67 pro rev 3.1, a second HD6850 for CF, and an SSD. Well worth it you will not regret buying this drive unless you get a defective unit which is ALWAYS a possibility with anything you buy. I haven't dealed with their customer support fortunately.
SUPERB soundcard/amp for headphones!!!!
Pros: -Has built in amplifier that supports headphones with upto 150ish ohms(MOST headphones) but it will still power all headphones well even if its not perfect. -Is better or the same then DS and DX models for headphones only. -Really brings headphones to life. Whole new sound and it is an incredibly huge difference.. 100% improvement from onboard sound. -Even though it has an older sound processor for speakers it is still high quality and sounds better than most onboard sound for speakers. -Automatically detects Front mic/headphone input and the headphone amp DOES work for the front input on your case as long as you plug it into the sound card.
Cons: -Only supports 5.1 surround sound and is an older sound processor but it still sounds better than onboard. -Connecter for Case front panel feels flimsy, I thought I broke it when I plugged it in but it's okay. I'll probably never remove it again though. -You have to make sure you don't set the ohms on the Xonar software too high or you could blow your headphones. You should read up on it before you mess with the settings. You will know if they are going to blow because you will hear crackling and other noises if the power is too much. This is more of a pro because you know its pumping plenty of juice to your cans.
Overall Review: -I bought this card off another website due to having a free month of Prime(free 2day and $3 overnight shipping on most items) but I usually order from Newegg so I figure I'd drop a review here too.
Last resort!
Pros: I have a Windows 7 machine and I ordered the Mac Version because all of the Blackwidows for PC are sold out. Also all of the other good mechanical keyboards with Cherry MX Blue switches for under $110ish are sold out) This keyboard SHOULD work on a Windows machine, the PC edition is sold out for the holiday seasons as far as I know, so if you want a quality(supposedly) mechanical keyboard with blue switches just buy the Mac edition and all will be well.
Cons: I will edit my rating if for some reason it does not work.
Overall Review: The command keys should function as Alt and the Apple key should function as windows. Any USB keyboard works on any platform now-a-days. If you can deal with the Command keys and Apple key on there, then you can get yourself a keyboard from newegg without spending $120+ or getting a terrible quality iOne mechanical. I did want to buy the ADESSO MKB-135B, it is only 68$ on sale right now and a very good keyboard but it is shipping from California and would take too long to get to me, so that left me with the iOne doody, or this. I will take the fruit key and command keys, big whoop!
Good value, but wish I got 6950
Pros: I bought this for my second build, first one being about 3 years prior to this one. Completely new build. It performs very well for the price. Can play almost any game on max settings @ 1280x720.
Cons: However 1920x1080 and higher resolutions do not mix well with the low 1GB of VRAM. Most games you can play on 1080p but the newest titles slow to a crawl when all the features are turned on and on a high resolution GTA4 with iCenhancer mod is unplayable. Beautiful but makes about 12-18 FPS at lowest settings.
Overall Review: You can buy a 6950 for 60$ more and unlock it to a 350$ 6970. There is somewhat in the range of a 90-95% success rate in unlocking these cards. In the rare case that it doesn't unlock, you will still be left with an awesome card, that can be overclocked greatly from stock speeds, and will overperform the 6850 by leaps and bounds. Obviously I wish I had bought the 6950 instead, but I am happy with the 6850 for the price I paid. It is a high quality budget card.