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James B.

James B.

Joined on 05/17/02

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 15
Most Favorable Review

Great value

EKWB EK Fluid Gaming A240 Complete Dual 120mm Water / Liquid Cooling Kit 240mm
EKWB EK Fluid Gaming A240 Complete Dual 120mm Water / Liquid Cooling Kit 240mm

Pros: This is all of the fun of the average open loop setup with half the cost. No different than building a typical copper based loop, only cheaper and lighter. Performance on par with copper based cooling. Performance better than a similar 240mm AIO.

Cons: Slightly more expensive than a typical 240mm AIO cooler. May need to get a little creative to find room for the pump/reservoir in a smaller case, especially compared to an AIO. A potential con for some may be that at this time there is no way to use PETG style tubing.

Overall Review: This product could go either way long term for me. EK currently does not sell standalone aluminum parts, so there's no way to expand one of these loops at the time I'm writing this. EK has said they plan on offering fittings/radiators/etc in the near future. If they do, this is a very affordable way to start water cooling with the ability to expand with additional radiators if you want to cool two GPUs and a CPU, or other more freeform designs. Without the ability to expand and customize, most buyers would be better with a more expensive copper based loop or a cheaper AIO.

Most Critical Review

Didn't work

SABRENT 1 ft. USB to Serial (9-pin) DB-9 RS-232 Adapter Cable (SBT-USC1M)
SABRENT 1 ft. USB to Serial (9-pin) DB-9 RS-232 Adapter Cable (SBT-USC1M)

Pros: Once repaired, the cable worked fine.

Cons: I bought this cable to console into routers, switches, firewalls, etc. Initially I couldn't send data to devices, only receive. I assumed it was a driver problem but after investigating found the cable was just wired incorrectly. Drivers allow you to change COM port from default COM4 to any available, but seems to "forget" after you remove and reinsert the cable at which point it gets reset to COM4.

Overall Review: Thankfully found many other people on the internet with the same problem and a solution or I'd have just returned it instead of fixing it.

Decent value

Pixio PX277 27-In 2560x1440 144Hz AMD FreeSync IPS Technology WQHD Gaming Monitor - QHD 1440p LED Panel DVI-D HDMI x2 Displayport Mini Displayport Built-in Speakers
Pixio PX277 27-In 2560x1440 144Hz AMD FreeSync IPS Technology WQHD Gaming Monitor - QHD 1440p LED Panel DVI-D HDMI x2 Displayport Mini Displayport Built-in Speakers

Pros: Probably the best monitor you can buy in this price range Even more compelling purchase if you have an AMD FreeSync compatible graphics card

Cons: Bezel and stand feel very cheap. Came with 3 dead pixels, not enough to consider defective and hardly noticeable, but dead pixels are dead pixels. Can't even use a VESA mount to avoid the cheap stand, as the neck of it is permanently attached to the monitor and not detachable. OSD is garbage

Overall Review: This was a gift to upgrade my brother's gaming rig. He recently upgraded to a GTX 1070 and was still using a 1080p TN panel. I figured with the holiday season I'd grab him a nicer panel since he's got the graphics for it now. The actual display on this monitor is really nice. It is visually about as good as my fiance's $600 Acer (which would probably be a $450 Acer if it didn't have GSync). As long as GSync is not a requirement and you don't mind that the stand and bezel is absolutely terrible, this is a great panel for the money.

12/28/2016

2/3rd of a success

SanDisk X300 2.5" 512GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SD7SB7S-512G-1122
SanDisk X300 2.5" 512GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SD7SB7S-512G-1122

Pros: Drive is fast. Seems to beat my MX100s across the board in performance. Five year warranty!

Cons: Bought three of these (for myself, my wife, and my brother). After 8 months (bought in February, writing review in October) mine has died. No longer recognized by any machine. I've had SSDs be dead on arrival, and the shortest lived one until now was a junky OCZ Vertex that died after about 4 years of 24/7 usage. Failing completely with no warning after 8 months is simply unacceptable.

Overall Review: Three drives is a small sample size, but a solid state drive suffering a complete failure after 6 months of normal usage (loading games) is terrible. Assuming they replace it under warranty, I'm only out a few hours of downloading and customizing some Steam and Battle.net games.

Fantastic card

EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC GAMING ACX 3.0, 08G-P4-6183-KR, 8GB GDDR5X, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC)
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC GAMING ACX 3.0, 08G-P4-6183-KR, 8GB GDDR5X, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC)

Pros: Surpassed listed boost speeds by default, reached roughly 2050mhz core with manual overclocking. Card is fairly quiet and runs cool.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Realistically speaking, pretty much all of the 1080s available are about the same. The "Silicon Lottery" dictates how much you can overclock, not the manufacturer. The major difference between the available 1080s is the manufacturer's customer service and support. EVGA is top notch when it comes to taking care of their customers, and that's the real reason that anyone looking for a graphics card should choose a card like this.

Terrible, part 2

SteelSeries Siberia v2 USB Connector Circumaural Gaming Headset (Frost Blue)
SteelSeries Siberia v2 USB Connector Circumaural Gaming Headset (Frost Blue)

Pros: Hard to have pros when they don't work. I guess they look nice.

Cons: First set arrived with non functional headphones. Returned for a replacement, second set arrives with non functional microphone. Piece of junk product.

Overall Review: We own three SteelSeries Siberia headsets (all 3.5mm variety). All work great. Both USB versions we've received have been defective in some fashion. Would absolutely never buy again.

12/25/2014