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Arthur C.

Arthur C.

Joined on 05/05/06

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 17
Most Favorable Review

My new favorite SSD

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDCR240GB-DX
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDCR240GB-DX

Pros: Priced similarly to competing Sandforce 2281 ONFI synchronous 180GB drives. Read performance running my search application is identical. My first SSD under 1$ per GB ! 32nm Toshiba toggle nand permits more write cycles than the smaller nm devices.

Cons: Write speed measured by running my indexing application was couple percent lower than the 2281 based ONFI synchronous drive. But it's not enough to make me change preference.

Overall Review: I've bought three different SSD brands so far. Never had a problem with any of them. Performance is within a few percent for all. They are all fast enough, so I buy based on price. I prefer Sandforce because they don't burn up as many write cycles for garbage collection as Marvell. The performance difference is insignificant.

Most Critical Review

Action is too loud and rough for me

Genius LuxeMate i200 (31310042101) Black USB Wired Mini Keyboard
Genius LuxeMate i200 (31310042101) Black USB Wired Mini Keyboard

Pros: Priced too cheap to return. Helped me realize how good my current mini keyboards are.

Cons: Loud, cheap-sounding, high friction, non-scissor key action.

Overall Review: Was misled by good reviews. There are surprisingly few quality mini scissor switch keyboards available. My search continues..

Use tweezers to insert the rubber mounts

XIGMATEK Gaia SD1283 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler LGA1150 Haswell Compatible
XIGMATEK Gaia SD1283 120mm Long Life Bearing CPU Cooler LGA1150 Haswell Compatible

Pros: 37-60C temps on i5 @4.4 Ghz with SpeedStep enabled. Mounting system allows removing heatsink without removing mobo, like certain others. Super price/performance. Fits perfectly in my HEC Blitz case.

Cons: Fan felt unbalanced spinning by hand and hummed when plugged in - had to toss it. So many small parts and many more wrong ways to fit them together. Simple drawings don't convey the complexity of installation, a video would be more appropriate. This is not supposed to be a puzzle. But the results are worth the surprising effort required - if you don't break something.

Overall Review: Use tweezers to insert the rubber mounts all the way in !! I like the three fat heapipes and cool fin shape :)

Handles 32GB - not 16GB as in spec

ASUS M5A88-M AM3+ AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS M5A88-M AM3+ AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: So far I tried the 870 and 880g based mobos I checked which spec states max 16GB ram take 32GB - this one included. No complaints from memtest86, or me. Memtest86 shows DOUBLE the memory bandwidth of my 4x and 6x Phenoms. Semi-auto FX 4100 overclock to 4.67 GHZ !!!

Cons: none

Overall Review: This mobo + FX 4100 blows away all Phenoms for integer performance. I saw it myself. I almost didn't go with FX 4100 cos of all the 2nd hand shill opinions out there.. It's unbeatable for my purposes.

16GB Acer K125-based netbook

Patriot Gamer 2 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model PGD316G1333ELK
Patriot Gamer 2 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model PGD316G1333ELK

Pros: Working in Acer 721 K125/880g based 11.5 netbook.

Cons: none

Overall Review: Not many 16GB netbooks these days. Useful for ramdisk or special software that can utilize the ram. Ramdisk beats SSD.

Effortless cpu+ram overclock, handles 32GB

ASRock A75 PRO4-M FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
ASRock A75 PRO4-M FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: One of the few mobos which explicitly handle 32GB. Effortlessly overclocked A8 8450 to 3.6 Ghz and 32GB DDR3 1333 to 1600.

Cons: I'm not a fan of the (slow) mouse interface, but not a big deal.