Pros: Destroys the 570GTX I finally upgraded from. I've been waiting for the next big thing and here we are. The 6s just weren't a huge upgrade. 7 was justifiable on paper, but I was still running most games that I played with great FPS, but prepping for future releases and the next few years? Can't go wrong with a GTX 970. I think the fans are quite nice, and a lot of people don't mention this card is actually much smaller than the 11 inch cards of past that barely fit in a "gaming" case. I had to remove the hard drive bay to install the 570 in the Antec case I have. Didn't need to this time. This thing ate up games like Crysis 3, Metro Last Light Redux, Metal Gear Revengence, and Total War Rome II all with max settings.. and obviously all the other nerdy strategy games I play. I expect to have another few years of solid gaming and look forward to Project Cars in 1080 with everything up! Temps are staying really low and I can't complain about fan noise like others.

Cons: If this lasts another few years, I really won't have one. I guess if I were trying to play stuff at 4k on dual monitors this card wouldn't keep up in the future, but that's why the x7x series exists for the in-betweens like me?

Overall Review: Not sure what the negative reviewers were going on about. Even playing Crysis 3 on "Very High" with the AA cranked up full the card wasn't heating up and the fans were not auto adjusting because they didn't need to. I'd check your case and the rest of your build if the fans were even having to kick past 40% anyway. Headphones or sound system during gaming and you are hearing a fan? Too fishy. I'm an audio producer by trade and if anyone was wanting to complain about this aspect it would be me.

Pros: Bought to replace an aging 6 core 3.2 and I always said that if they ever make a 4.0+ 8 core then I could justify the upgrade. Well here we are. I'm an audio producer and our CPU *is* our creativity meter. The impact this made wasn't surprisingly as dramatic as I hoped under load with a big project going, but I learned a lot about which plugins use mutlithreading and which don't. Rendering times are dramatically shorter so if anything it was worth the upgrade here. In gaming I don't notice too much of a difference because I still haven't gotten a new card, but I can only imagine the crunch time on strategy games will be much lower. The one big HUGE difference I did notice is that this thing just eats transcoding alive and wants more. PS3 Media Server went from me tolerating a skip or pause now and then on a 720p video to a 1080p full quality video transcoding in seconds. This is amazing considering I was told by so many people that my bandwidth was the reason this would lag or the devices weren't good enough.. those people were wrong and should feel bad. I think I would have paid the price of this CPU just for that ability alone considering how many devices we've gone through trying to find a reliable media solution that just worked with everything. Also OCed this to 4.3 by moving one setting and I"m pretty OC illiterate. I can see getting much higher with careful experimentation but that's quite enough considering its now over 1ghz and 2 cores more than my previous CPU.

Cons: Stock cooler went in the closet. Obviously no one serious about their CPU will use these ever. Turbo sounds great on paper, but it's a nightmare with audio software and will cause audio program crashes and blue screens due to throttling. Disable it and slightly overclock (its super easy) if you really want the 4.2 and more stability to boot

Overall Review: Paired with Hyper 212 Evo nicely.

Pros: I didn't even bother with the stock heatsink obviously and went straight for this as it came recommended for the 8350 and that recommendation was a solid one that I will stand behind. Idle temps around 25C and I've never seen about 48C even under extreme Prime95 testing for long periods of time. I don't see the point of water cooling when this is the case.

Cons: I've installed dozens of heatsinks on built computers over the years, but this is the first that humbled me with having to seek a video on Youtube. The boxed instructions might as well be in Japanese and really don't make sense till you see it visually. If you don't have any way to watch a video while you install this, I'd recommend obtaining one. This could be a "me" issue, but given the amount of views these videos have I'd say it's likely someone that reads this will face a similar issue. I wouldn't let that discourage you, but is worth noting as a con. Once I watched the video the device went on without a hitch.

Pros: I wanted to get my parents off ultra expensive TV providers and get them on Netflix. I've had plenty of experience with Netflix on every gaming console out there, so I let them borrow my PS3 while I shopped for a new device. I did a lot of research about this device and got some input from family and friends that had one. I read so many people having compatibility issues, usb drives not working and all this stuff and figured if I had too many issues I'd just send it back. I'm glad I took the gamble though and it's apparently people simply cannot read, period. Device works EXACTLY like it's advertised. If your files won't play it's because it's not on the list, so make sure you read the list. If you are still hoarding avi files from 2008, of course they are not going to play, but if you are in fact in tune with 2014 and understand what mp4/aac can do for quality then congrats you won't have a single problem. As far as Netflix, the only "problem" I found was that it's still back a couple years with it's featured app settings in that it's operated around just one playlist. If you are used to the new app where everyone in the family can have their own playlist, then you need to look at the Roku 3 because it has the updated app. You can also search around on the channels and find a much better browser for Netflix in general with any Roku which is a huge plus. The streaming app itself is adaptive as well and that was very important for me to know given their internet isn't that great. However I had no issue in getting very close if not a great streaming 720p picture and it wasn't using very much bandwidth on the network at all compared to other devices. That's something I can't say for the PS3 which is probably one of the best streaming devices out there as far as I'm concerned. The bonus I didn't know was that there are other free channels and stuff as bonus on the device. Even stuff from major TV channels for free (with ads of course) which was very surprising. My parents are fans of the show Vikings and they can still keep up with it because of this device despite no TV provider. I did my homework and despite that minor complaint with the Netflix app I couldn't be happier. I will upgrade their box to the Roku 3 eventually and just take this one for my own personal use at some point.

Cons: Netflix app is still last-gen and unlikely to be updated. MKV support comes with very specific codec needs and subtitles will only work if they are hardcoded. Wrapped SRT will not work. Anime fans take note there ;) I know all is fair in capitalism but some stuff is marked free channels that have a bit of carrot-on-a-string going on. Minor gripe but will take a while and can't complain about free, but will take a while to sort all of these out for functionality. Would be nice if something was paid or free, not both is what I'm getting at for confusion sake.

Pros: Easier than keeping up with rechargeable batteries and more cost effective. Now my 360 controller is as easy to deal with battery life as my PS3 controller.

Cons: Xbox should have come with this to start with.

Overall Review: These things cost way more when the Xbox came out. This should be considered a must have accessory for your console

Pros: I'm very very picky about headphones as I'm an audio producer. Even for gaming I'd be critical about what I wear. Not just quality sound, but comfort. These headphones have a very flat response which means no frequency is incredibly overbearing including bass. These are not for listening to dubstep with. These are for hearing footsteps on COD with. They are incredibly comfortable even after a 8 hour session of gaming. No one complained about mic clarity and honestly everything on XBL sounds like garbage quality anyway. I really like the mic and volume controls right at my disposal.

Cons: In general I've owned many many headphones over the years and the 'switch' section is the first place where trouble starts. Since these are in my living room, I don't think the desk chair will be culprit but this is where you need to care of your gear. Not wireless, but you get what you pay for. As long as you run the cords on your tv properly they are barely noticeable.

Overall Review: These will work with PC as well. To the people complaining about static, I barely hear it and they don't understand that a powered usb source is going to have line noise no matter what. As far as sound quality to price ratio, these are right on the money with a good feature set to boot. I don't see any need to spend anymore money unless you just have it to blow. I've thrown 50 bucks at far worse headsets and headphones. I know its a smart thing to advertise specifically for Xbox, but they should have these in the PC section too.