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steven s.

steven s.

Joined on 08/17/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 26
Most Favorable Review

Huge upgrade

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity     (100315L )
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity (100315L )

Pros: Very fast card for the cash. Upgraded from a Sapphire 3870 GDDR4 and what a difference. As apposed to my last Sapphire card, (which I ended up strapping a Zalman VF1000 on it because the Stock fan idled at 70%) this cards fan idles at 20-25% which is completely inaudible over my 3 120mm, 1400mm and 200mm fans, and runs at about 40% with temps of 60c under full load. Well within GPU limits. Even at 60%(which my card never reaches) this cards fan is still not bad noise wise at all. Compared to a Reference heatsink design this thing is like a ninja. Running Starcraft 2 maxed as well as Bad Company 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Gothic 4. Currently running at 875mhz core, not overclocking the ram till I get some heatsinks on them. Also power consumption is retardly low. Pulls less power under full load then my 3870, and during internet browsing and desktop tasks you would think you had onboard video.

Cons: No cooling for the RAM. I didn't expect this, but I wouldn't overclock the ram even 5mhz without it. Also my card looked dirty. The fan shroud looked very clean and spotless, but the board looked gunky, like it had been man handled with pizza grease covered fingers. A little alcohol cleaned it up though.

Overall Review: Will definitely be purchasing a second when the 6770s come out. The complaints I read about with the fan noise is ridiculous. Either you have a faulty fan, or you computer is not cooled properly.

12/26/2010
Most Critical Review

Iffy

COUGAR CF-V12H Vortex Hydro-Dynamic-Bearing (Fluid) 300,000 Hours 12CM Silent Cooling Fan
COUGAR CF-V12H Vortex Hydro-Dynamic-Bearing (Fluid) 300,000 Hours 12CM Silent Cooling Fan

Pros: Nice design, fairly quiet and the rubber feet are a nice touch. Sleeving was well done. The orange blades look cool with a black case.

Cons: Bought 3 in May of last year, about 3 months ago the rear exhaust started to make a ticking noise that is irritating as all hell. Going to have to search for a replacement and probably wont be buying another cougar fan.

Overall Review: 2/3 still work fine, but if I'm spending 13 dollars for a case fan, I expect a better life span then this. Especially with a gimmicky "Hydro-fluid bearing". My PC only runs for about 7 hours a day. That means this fan didnt even last 3000 hours... Ive had $4 Coolermaster and Masscool fans last longer.

11/10/2013

Very Nice if you can get them cheap

Velodyne vBold Over-Ear Wireless Bluetooth Headphones - Matte Black
Velodyne vBold Over-Ear Wireless Bluetooth Headphones - Matte Black

Pros: If you can get these for the under 100 price they've been at they are very nice. Pretty good build quality, Not too heavy considering there is a battery in them Very easy to pair with devices. They so far have worked with my laptop, PC, Samsung tablet and Samsung phone. Battery Life is good. Charged them once so far and used them for about 4-5 hours. I live and a 3 bedroom ranch style house and can leave my tablet anywhere or walk away from my pc and go anywhere in the house and still have a good connection. Also works with Teamspeak and Ventrilo, and from what my clanmates and friends have said, sound pretty decent. I cant comment on stuff like Skype, but I wouldn't see why they don't work with that as well. I thought they had more then enough bass. While it is flat it isn't muddy or overpowering or weak.

Cons: They do sound a bit flat but given they're wireless I'm not gonna dock an egg. I can see why that would be a peeve for someone that spent full price for them though. Couldn't get them to work with my PS4. It would have been awesome to finally have a good PS4 headset. I didn't try hooking them up with the wire though. If you buy the matte black ones prepare to wipe off fingerprints constantly. Its basically the same rubber paint on Razer products.

Overall Review: Have not had the problem a previous reviewer had with them cutting in and out. Perhaps they received a bad unit? While they aren't full over the ear headphones they are large enough where only half of the padding has to rest over your ear, meaning you can have the back of your ear cupped in the earpad. I have a pair of Sennheiser 280s and I wouldn't replace them with these, but sometimes I don't want that massive cord dragging around.

The end of gaming laptops?

ThinkPad Laptop Edge AMD A8-5550M 4GB Memory 500GB HDD AMD Radeon HD 8550G 15.6" Windows 7 Pro 64-bit / 8 Pro 64-bit downgrade - pre-installed: Windows 7 E545 (20B2000KUS)
ThinkPad Laptop Edge AMD A8-5550M 4GB Memory 500GB HDD AMD Radeon HD 8550G 15.6" Windows 7 Pro 64-bit / 8 Pro 64-bit downgrade - pre-installed: Windows 7 E545 (20B2000KUS)

Pros: I'll start by saying I did not buy this on newegg. I bought it direct from lenovo, with the cpu upgraded to the 5750m and a better battery. So I'll try to keep my review clear of any comments on those things. Firstly, the keyboard rocks. Love typing on this. The F keys double as all the function keys, which helps keep the laptop looking very sleek and clutter free. Currently this is the best budget gaming laptop you can get under 650. Theres a few others out there with nvidias SLIGHTLY better GT740 but the reviews are ripe with temperature complaints and overheating. Also, with steam stream now, if you have a decent gaming PC you can just stream all your games to the laptop and have the PC do all the work. Even with an older 100mbps router I was able to stream Skyrim in ultra with almost no stutter or lag. Very promising. Since its a business laptop (technically) access to the innards is very easy, one panel exposes the HDD ram and CPU block. Meaning if they start putting Kaveri chips in later E545s there's a good chance you'll be able to painlessly upgrade your CPU with a bios upgrade. AMDs Turbo is a nice feature. It will overclock your cpu to max possible turbo clock till the CPU reaches within 10C of its max thermal operating temperature. It can keep my 5750m at 3.2ghz while general use which is noticeable. While gaming after about 20 minutes though it gets to close to the thermal threshold and backs off to 2.8ghz. Still a 300mhz overclock. This means your getting alot more performance with no risk. CPUs now days can take a massive beating. I've owned 3rd hand CPUs that have been ran at their max safe voltages their entire life and had no issues. It is also possible to manually control CPU/GPU clocks and voltages in AMD overdrive. So if you dont want to run Turbo but want to manually OC your CPU/GPU you can.

Cons: The track pad is ABYSMAL. When dragging icons and windows around they sometimes just wander around on the screen and when trying to scroll on a webpage it can be hard to find the scroll area. The screen as most review sites claim is a bit subpar. However that seems to be how it goes no days with most sub 500 dollar laptop screens. You have to make sure you position is just right to avoid a bad viewing angle. Had to tweak some settings in AMD CCC to get the color and brightness just right. Get rid of the HDD stat. 5400rpm laptop drives are just appalling and this one is no different. Its some seagate. I put a Samsung 128GB Evo in it and it boots lickity split. Also RUN from Windows 8. This was my first time using it and I will never EVER use it. Microsoft seems to follow Intels Tick Tock method, just in reverse. Avoid the tocks at all cost. XP tick, Vista tock, 7 tick, 8 tock.... The laptop has cooling exhaust vents on the left side and rear, however due to how the screen folds back and down, the rear vent is basically worthless, just blows hot air on your screen. Power plug is on the right side. Never encountered a laptop with this. Makes using a mouse somewhat annoying in a confined space.

Overall Review: All in all I am satisfied with my purchase. I did a fair amount of research before buying this laptop and I dont personally believe at the moment there is a better laptop that can do more for less. I haven't really pushed the GPU much due to being able to stream games. But Minecraft will play max settings with 10 chunks 50-60FPS steady and SWTOR plays well on low. Torchlight II I was able to max out minus weather effects and get a very acceptable FPS. I would recommend this to any of my friends or family members that are looking for a good general use laptop.

The little PSU that could.

Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Intel Haswell Fully Compatible
Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Intel Haswell Fully Compatible

Pros: Over 4 years now and counting. Has been the core of alot of my builds and seen its fair share of other components. Been used quite heavily between hours and hours of gaming, folding and general AFK.

Cons: Went up in price since I bought it. But what hasn't?

Overall Review: Currently is powering my spare PC/folding rig. Runs 24/7 rock solid. Intel i3-550 @ 4.2ghz 1.325v Asus P7H55-m Pro OCZ Fatal1ty 4GB DDR1600 Sparkle GTX460 825/950/1650mhz

Amazing CPU

Intel Core i3-550 - Core i3 Clarkdale Dual-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1156 73W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80616I3550
Intel Core i3-550 - Core i3 Clarkdale Dual-Core 3.2 GHz LGA 1156 73W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80616I3550

Pros: Just an amazing CPU. Period. Currently have clocked 4.3ghz @ 1.33v paired with a Auss P7H55-M Pro board. Stays between 50-53C in prime under an old Zalman CNPS9500 with decent airflow. I really can't say enough how impressed with this CPU I am. Even though its a dual core, this baby will devour most games you throw at it, only MMOs and flight simulators would this have an issue with. And even then, if you can get it to 4ghz, you wouldn't really have that much of a problem.

Cons: Can't give 6 eggs.

Overall Review: I haven't owned a Intel product since an old Pentium III 1.13ghz Tualatin. But I can honestly say I will be switching back. Comparing this CPU to all my AMD cpus that I have had over the year, none have even come close to the i3-550s rare power at stock, and overclocked.