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Ryan N.

Ryan N.

Joined on 06/24/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 46
Most Favorable Review

Best board out there

DFI LANParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard
DFI LANParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: This motherboard is just plain awesome. It lives up to DFI's reputation. Features perfect for overclocking, lots of BIOS options, rear-accessible CMOS reset, you can save multiple CMOS config setups, and most of all, it has three PCI slots instead of a bunch of useless PCIe x1 slots. It can accommodate two dual-slot video cards in crossfire, AND your Killer NIC and PCI sound card. This is the board I've been waiting for.

Cons: Manual doesn't document all the settings. I had to google quite a few of them, as I went straight from a 939/DDR to AM3/DDR3, and was unfamiliar with many settings. Northbridge/Southbridge cooling could stand to be more effective.

Overall Review: I love this board, the cons are all minor. It booted my Phenom II X3 720BE at 4GHz with only minor tweaks. Now if only I could get my DDR3 2000 to boot above 1500MHz...

Most Critical Review
Verbatim Store 'n' Stay 16GB Netbook USB Drive 97464
Verbatim Store 'n' Stay 16GB Netbook USB Drive 97464

Pros: Great size and style.

Cons: Died in less than 6 months.

Overall Review: Wish it was made better. This was perfect for plugging into my head unit in my car, but it crapped out too soon. It has a microSD card in it, which I was able to remove and back up the data from, but the card crapped out too after another week or so. Trying another brand, I guess.

12/29/2011

DOA

ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax AM4 AMD B550 Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ax AM4 AMD B550 Mini ITX AMD Motherboard

Cons: Can't update BIOS without supported CPU

Overall Review: Board was DOA. Probably would have been nice if it worked. Also, not being able to update the BIOS without a supported CPU meant figuring out whether it was that or DOA was a huge pain, tearing apart another computer, swapping parts, took all day.

Great RAM for Ryzen

G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C14D-32GVK
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C14D-32GVK

Overall Review: Works great out of the box, easy configuration with XMP Profile.

Big power in a small package

FSP 450W Micro ATX12V / SFX12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply with Intel Haswell Ready (FSP450-60GHS(85)-R1)
FSP 450W Micro ATX12V / SFX12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply with Intel Haswell Ready (FSP450-60GHS(85)-R1)

Pros: This is the most powerful micro ATX power supply around. It can power a large GPU like an R9 290X, yet still fit in a tiny HTPC case. If you want big performance in a small box, this is the one to get. It also comes with a bracket to attach it to full ATX mounts, though I'm not sure why you'd want to do that.

Cons: Not modular. Higher efficiency would be nice.

Overall Review: I bought this several years ago when the stock power supply in my HTPC died. Since then, I've installed numerous pieces of hardware in that computer including very big GPUs, and it has no problems running it.

Exceeded expectations

AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz (4.2 GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W FD8350FRHKBOX Desktop Processor
AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz (4.2 GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W FD8350FRHKBOX Desktop Processor

Pros: Very fast, much faster than I expected based on benchmarks and reviews online. This is a big step up from a Phenom II processor.

Cons: None