Joined on 07/02/09
PSW505
Pros: Great compliment to the Polk Monitor 45s. I listen to a lot of jazz fusion with good bass, Like Stanley Clark and Chick Corea. Also listen to Hot Tuna and Stray Cats. With just the monitor 45s I was missing the bass musicians. The PSW505s were just what I needed. Got it at a great price less than $210 with shipping. About a third of normal price.
Cons: Stopped working 5 months after buying. Past the 30 days, so couldn't return to Newegg.
Overall Review: Put off calling Polk for a couple weeks. Wasn't on the phone 5 minutes, and was told they would be sending a new back plate which has the amp crossover and would be here in a couple days. No testing, no questions nothing. Don't even have to send old parts back. Polk, you're great! Also have the monitor 30s, which I'll use for rear speakers when I buy a 5.1 amp.
Pretty Decent Upgrade
Pros: Using a 1080x2560 LG monitor. Upgraded from an EVGA GTX980sc. When running Valley benchmark with all settings maxed out on both, the gtx1080 improved 57% and Heaven benchmark improved 16%. Stayed under 60 degrees with custom fan curve that's not very aggressive, Even with 3D Mark Fire Strike. Nvidia New Dawn was smoother. Showed up with the newest bios. Quiet, don't even notice in Corsair 600t case. No coil whine. Lot better looking. Uses a bit less power. Only one pci-e power connector Got it when it was marked down $20 & free shipping.
Cons: No real cons, will see what happens as time goes by.
Overall Review: Not a big upgrade from the GTX980sc, but noticeable. Probably a better upgrade when using multiple monitors or higher resolutions. Good reason to look at bigger, higher resolution monitors.
Polk CS1 Center speaker
Pros: Matches my monitor 30 series ii in rear, monitor 45B in front and PSW505 subwoofer. All still sounding excellent! Great as a set.
Cons: Had the psw505 go out on me after only a few months, but Polk sent a new amp for it at no cost and was delivered on a Saturday. Since then have been great.
Overall Review: Listen to a lot of DVD-Audio 5.1 surround music, ELP,Yes, Santana, Deep Purple, and Jethro Tull etc. The center channel on my sound system in the living room being missing, I was forced to listen to them on my computer with a nice surround speakers. Now, after finally completing my living room system, I've been in Heaven. Would like to have gone with bugger corner speakers, but live in a smaller house. The Psw 505 is proberly to big, but oh well, buy a new house I guess, so I'll have a reason to bigger Polk speakers.
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Pros: It's 16gb ram on 2 sticks It works as advertised, what else can I say?
Cons: None yet, except for them starting out at 1333, went to the bios and reset to 1600 and voila.
Overall Review: Went from 4 x 4gb corsair vengeance ram, which worked fine when my 2600k & asus sabertooth p67 where not overclocked. Originally I had 2 x 4gb of the corsair vengeance ram and had my 2600k OCed to 4.5 Gb and then added 2 more 4gb sticks of the same memory and had random bsod. Without it being overclocked they worked fine. Heard 4 sticks of ram were harder on the memory controller, so went looking for 2 x 8gb ram. Saw these on newegg for $64.99 and very highly rated, so grabbed them. Will be putting my oc back when Ican in the next couple days.
GTX 980 Superclocked ACX 2.0
Pros: Bought the GTX 980 Superclocked ACX 2.0 to replace my EVGA GTX590 Classified. Couldn't be happier. Runs cooler, faster and was cheaper. Also uses a lot less electricity.
Cons: None
Overall Review: Got the gtx590 in 2011 for $750 and got the GTX 980 Superclocked ACX 2.0 for $500. Ran Heaven benchmark on both and averaged 61fps with the gtx590 and 98fps with the gtx980. The gtx980 also significantly increased increased fps in games. Puts out less heat into my corsair 600t case, which makes my i7 2600k with a H80 cooler run a couple degrees cooler.
Great Card
Pros: Still going strong 4 years now. Moved up to this from a GTS250, what an upgrade!
Cons: Heat. But never past 80 - 85 C. I don't use the AC much.
Overall Review: I don't play real demanding games, Tomb Raider games are probly the the most demaning, and am getting 100fps minimum. But love tech demos, like Heaven and Valley from unigine and others. I Have a gtx980 from evga on the way. the gtx590 still going strong, but time for a vacation, and use as a backup.