Joined on 11/21/07
Love it
Pros: Writing as a followup to my initial eggXpert review. I am so fond of this motherboard, I actually tore down my main computer and swapped Z87x-OC for this one. While the OC board could get to slightly higher maximum overclocks, this board still easily hit my everyday stable clock speed of 4.7GHz on my 4770k. My favorite part of this board has to be the audio. The headphone amp on this board drives my Corsair Vengeance headset louder than my Xonar DX and features just as much adjustability and capability as the separate card.
Cons: In my usage, the only con is the small number of SATA ports. I have my primary disk array, two large storage drives, a DVD-RW drive and a BD-RW drive. That's all the ports used up right there. If I used the machine for gaming only, I wouldn't use as many drives but as I also do a lot of video editing I need the storage. On the subject of the SATA ports, it is important to note that while this board features an M.2 slot as well as a SATA Express port, you can only use one or the other and lose 2 of the SATA 3.0 ports as well (per pg. 11 & 25 of the manual "M.2, SATA Express, and SATA 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time.")When planning your build, keep this in mind. The other potential con I see is the PCIe lane distribution. There are 3 x16 length slots. You either get 16 lanes to the top slot on its own or 8 lanes to the top and middle slot (SLI and Crossfire capable). The bottom slot is only 4 lanes and is thus only AMD Crossfire capable. However, if you occupy one of the PCIe x1 slots, this slot is disabled. Again, this is a point that you need to consider for your build. I typically advise against gaming on 4-lane multi-gpu setups anyway, but the potential conflict is there.
Overall Review: I'll say it again, I love this board. It's packed with all kinds of features allowing for a huge variety of setup whether it's an M.2 SSD or a SATA Express drive, there's a legacy PCI slot for my old TV tuner, Qualcomm Killer ethernet, and the audio. The break in the PCB is even backlit by some red LEDs. Sure, it gets blocked by my graphics cards, but it's a neat touch. You may no be able to use every feature on the board at once, but for only $135 this board really delivers a lot of options
For the price, I expect more
Pros: This is a very feature-rich headset. If you like lights, using these on USB allows a great deal of lighting color options as well as breathing/noise sensitive options. The retractable mic is a really nice touch as well as the flat cable. There is also a 3.5mm jack on the right earcup to daisychain another headset for holiday travel and watching movies. The ability to use the USB controller, 2 3.5mm jacks for headphones and mic or even a 3.5mm TRRS for mic and headphones on a cell phone was a nice consideration. They really came to life when hooked into my Xonar and fed a lot of power.
Cons: While they're fairly comfortable, they honestly started to become a bit painful after long periods of use like in my above mentioned travel (bear in mind I'm a big guy, 7'1" tall and my head is large to match). When used with USB, the sound really isn't very powerful. As I said above, it wasn't until I hooked them up to a good sound card with a headphone amp that I was satisfied with the sound and there just doesn't seem to be much volume via USB, either. The biggest con has to be the volume control, though. While the earcup control knob is cool, when I start turning it down I can hear the right speaker is significantly quieter than the left and at really low levels the right one will be completely off while the left remains on. This is just completely unacceptable on a headset that is going to demand such a price premium. I'll admit I don't often use the volume control on the headset but instead use whatever device it's connected to, but occasionally I may nudge it or something when it's not in use and then when I put the headset on I get imbalanced audio. I'm sure eventually it will result in one speaker cutting in and out.
Overall Review: As I said in the cons, the volume is pretty weak via USB, but as far as overall sound quality they aren't bad. I would say it feels like the midrange is scooped out a bit over USB (which many people do with an EQ anyway) and I found myself adding a bit back with the provided EQ to fatten the sound again. Highs are nice and clear and the lows are present but not boomy or overwhelming. If you like a lot of bass, you're going to need a good sound card as the USB controller just won't push them hard enough. All in all I have to say I'm a bit disappointed. There are a lot of great features and gadgets for the headset but it seems that's where the cost is. The actual performance of the device falls well short of the pricepoint.
Great board for a cheap rig
Pros: Decent layout, inexpensive, 4 memory slots for upgradability, wifi and Bluetooth for cheap!
Cons: Not so much a con as understanding what you're purchasing - B450 does not provide PCIe 4.0 for the fastest of NVME storage.
Overall Review: Had a R5 3600 laying around and picked this board up pretty cheap to rebuild my HTPC. Coupled with a 1660 Super, it's a great streaming box/game server/light gaming console. If you're into unicorn vomit, the board has RGB strip and addressable headers but no on-board lights to shut off. As AM4 slowly drifts off into the sunset, this board is a great option for anyone wanting an inexpensive, capable machine with a pretty broad set of features.
Very attractive case at an attractive price!
Pros: Looks great, plenty of space for multiple large radiators, addressable lighting and controller, magnetic dust filters all the way around...all the stuff you'd expect from a modern case at a good price!
Cons: Very minor, but the reset button was repurposed to cycle the preprogrammed LED modes however still retain the RESET SW header. It's separated off and already connected to the fan controller, but it makes for an awkward wire run.
Overall Review: I still get people commenting on this case and often guessing it's a far more expensive model! The fan and LED controller plugs right in to the ARGB header on my motherboard which completely takes it over allowing me to use the reset switch as a reset switch again (I guess that's "old school" of me). It's been many, many years since I built a mid tower but I still found plenty of space for my large water cooling setup with two 360mm rads and keep all the wires clean with the 16TB of mechanical drives completely out of sight. I would absolutely buy another one of these cases and have recommended it to multiple friends.
Exactly what you'd expect!
Pros: 32GB for that 3d printer sweet spot, plenty of speed when used as a Pi OS drive, cheap
Cons: None
Overall Review: As the pros stated - I used it for one of my 3d printers to store a lot of my commonly printed stuff. Eventually went with a Pi to control the printers and used this card as the primary storage. Never really speed tested it or anything, but it's perfectly adequate! Now if only I could stop losing the micro to full SD card adapters these things come with...NEVER have one of those when I need it!
Solid performer at a decent price
Pros: Fast speeds, low profile making it compatible with everything
Cons: Didn't quite reach the "up to" speed of 7400MB/s
Overall Review: I was quite impressed with the overall performance of this drive, especially compared to much higher cost/capacity and faster drive (from another brand) which comes with a massive heatsink. As you can see in my 2nd photo, the sticker easily peels off leaving no residue so an integrated heatsink on a motherboard can be applied. I included some fairly detailed storage benchmark photos if you really want to nerd out, but allow me to hit the highlights. In my test on a freshly formatted blank drive, I had peak read and write speeds of 6533.2MB/s and 6273.2MB/s respectively. Bnb After loading in a few hundred gigs of games (obviously nowhere near max capacity to result in appreciable bandwidth drops) sequential rates had barely moved and are well within margin of error. Now for the obvious - this fell nearly 1 full GB/s shy of the "up to" claim. Not surprised by this in the least and, especially as a secondary drive I'm utilizing for game storage, it's absolutely great. For what it's worth, the test system is an older AMD Ryzen 3600x in an x570 board. This drive was on the secondary m.2 slot which is driven by the x570 chipset which, per the manual, is still 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0. Does the chipset impart a slight performance penalty as compared to the lanes driven directly from the CPU? Perhaps, and so I give this drive the benefit of the doubt that the extra 900MB/s could be achievable in optimal conditions.
Mislabeled unit
Would not recommend. Purchased a refurb MacBook Air listed as a MD760LL 2013 model in Grade A condition. Unit received is a 2011 model MC965LL with multiple severe dents. Unit works fine but is less powerful, lacks 802.11ac and has 5 hours less battery life.
Excellent.
I ordered with express shipping and got the case the same day as the rest of the shipment from Newegg. No processing delay before shipping as I've encountered with other vendors, just rapid service. I honestly didn't even realize it was from a 3rd party in my hurry to order and with everything arriving in a pile at my door, I wouldn't have known were it not for the feedback invite. In my opinion, that's exactly how it should be and am happy to give a favorable review.