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Matthew B.

Matthew B.

Joined on 01/26/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review

Best bang for the buck

EVGA GeForce GTX 650 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 Graphics Card 01G-P4-2650-KR
EVGA GeForce GTX 650 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 Graphics Card 01G-P4-2650-KR

Pros: This is a great performing video card for a variety of applications. It easily runs every game I play at home without issues (dayZ, arma 3, cs:go, crysis etc), and works smoothly with every operating system I have to deal with as an enterprise IT guy. The 1gb ram is actually a pro if you're putting in an XP machine, and the overall size of the card means it will fit in almost every case you can imagine. The price is very low for the performance and EVGA is my goto company for video cards due to responsive customer service and consistent quality products.

Cons: Not an SLI card. If it was, I'd have 2 of them in my tower at home and I'd be even happier.

Overall Review: Regardless of the application: workstation, school computer or gaming rig, this is a great choice for a single video card rig and a great choice of a company from which to buy your hardware.

Way better than stock coolers

ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro - Compact Multi-Compatible Tower CPU Cooler | 92 mm PWM Fan | for AMD AM4 and Intel 115x CPU | Recommended up to 115 W TDP
ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro - Compact Multi-Compatible Tower CPU Cooler | 92 mm PWM Fan | for AMD AM4 and Intel 115x CPU | Recommended up to 115 W TDP

Pros: Very effective and quiet cooler, runs relatively low(1500-2000) RPM fan instead of some of the stock coolers that spool up to 5000rpm under load and sound horrible. The extra surface area of the heatsink and the added efficiency of the heatpipe & blade design means it does more work for less power and less noise. Dropped cpu temps on a midrange i5 into the 28c-40c range from 35-50c with stock intel cooler. Tested under full load on all 4 cores. Never had a fan go bad on one of these, and I installed my first one more than 5 years ago.

Cons: Quite large and sometimes it will get in the way of other things on a smaller mobo or in a small case. Will probably not work with a slim case or a mini atx rig, so make sure you measure from about a 1/2 cm above the actual chip to the case wall to be sure it will fit with room to not rub, and check that it won't get in the way of your ram slots or cpu power socket. You might have to temporarily remove the fan to add a hard drive to the cage, if the hd cage is fixed in your case, but doing this is a snap (literally).

Overall Review: I've used the Freezer 7 pro on a couple different machines ranging from an e8400 oc'd core 2 duo to core i5 processors and it has been a consistently great investment. They've gotten better with every revision. Cool temps, low noise and low power consumption along with being very affordable makes this cooler a great choice. It looks pretty fancy too, if that's what you're going for.

Nice Fans - Quiet

Vantec Stealth 80mm Double Ball Bearing Silent Case Fan - Model SF8025L
Vantec Stealth 80mm Double Ball Bearing Silent Case Fan - Model SF8025L

Pros: well constructed simple 80mm fans with sensing and everything you need to hook them up to either the mobo or molex. no fancy lights, no gimmicks. They run so that you can't even hear them with a couple of them in a bare steel case.

Cons: No protective fabric wrap on the wires, but they are fairly well coated so its not really an issue and I haven't seen any of them abrade from vibration after using quite a few in different setups.

Overall Review: I add these to every prebuilt computer that I buy for workstations just to exhaust the case better, since a lot of those companies skimp on casefans. They keep everything that little bit cooler, for very little cost and almost no power consumption.

economy class i3 workstations

ASUS Desktop PC CM6730-US003Q Intel Core i3-3220T 4GB DDR3 1TB HDD Intel HD Graphics 2500 Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
ASUS Desktop PC CM6730-US003Q Intel Core i3-3220T 4GB DDR3 1TB HDD Intel HD Graphics 2500 Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit

Pros: Nice solid mobo with a pci-e slot for upgrading the graphics card if you require it and space for more ram. Comes with room to grow, unlike a lot of other machines in this price range. Runs very quietly and the case takes up very little room. Looks pretty nice in glossy black. Has a decent core i3 in it and it will serve as a workstation for most business needs for a while. comes with Windows 7 Pro, which is arguably the best current OS on the market. (definitely for enterprise work)

Cons: This is an air cooled computer tower but the case has passive cooling and does not have a main cooling fan other than that of the PSU. These cpu's can run warm under load so a simple 80mm fan in the back would have gone a long way and not increased the price much. On every one of these units I added one fan to the back for under 10 dollars and it has shown performance increases across the board under load/ during benchmarking tests. Not a huge con for me, since I don't mind customizing towers, and this tower came with a spot to mount the fan with ease.

Overall Review: I've been using these to make the switch to windows 7 for workstations in a small business and they are perfect for the job. The only thing I would do without is the variety of ASUS software that came on the box, none of which I will use. It takes very little time to wipe most of it out and I've come to expect a bit of manufacturer software when I buy prebuilt rigs, so it's not a dealbreaker to me.

good GPU, great price

EVGA 6 GeForce 6200 512MB DDR2 PCI 2.1 Graphics Card 512-P1-N402-LR
EVGA 6 GeForce 6200 512MB DDR2 PCI 2.1 Graphics Card 512-P1-N402-LR

Pros: I have a variety of these GPUs from EVGA deployed across our business and for a medium duty workstation where people may have to do some basic graphic editting or drafting work they are quite sufficient and they are very reliable. Ive run AGP and PCI varieties of this same card for years now and the drivers are rock solid and overall EVGA seems to have some of the highest standards in the business when making even their economy class cards. The quality of construction is good, and the design of the card is such that it will fit/work in most any application/case with ease. With a half gig of ram on this card, it can handle anything other than modern PC gaming and it's a huge step up from onboard GPUs that would be sharing your system RAM.

Cons: passive cooling requires a case with good airflow to keep temperatures low. If it had a simple and well constructed fan on it, it would be a true 5 star product.

Overall Review: I use EVGA video cards in home computing, enterprise IT work and in my gaming rig. Across the board, I have had no complaints with their GPUs and I recommend them highly to anyone who will listen.

Good solution for the cost

APC BE750G Back-UPS 750 VA 10-outlet Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) (Replaced by BE850M2)
APC BE750G Back-UPS 750 VA 10-outlet Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) (Replaced by BE850M2)

Pros: Reasonably long uptime for very little expense. These units will keep a mid range workstation or home computer on for about 20-30 minutes with the power off or fluctuating. If you operate in an environment where there is inconsistent power or radio frequency interference they are essential for avoiding data loss due to unexpected shutdowns. I have about 10 of these, some on my home computers and some hooked up in our work office and factory workshop and I've rarely had to replace batteries, and never had one run out of juice before the power came back on. They also work as a line conditioner by normalizing the voltage you're getting from the wall.

Cons: Replacement batteries for APC UPS units are not cheap, and occasionally, like any UPS, the batteries will suffer major failures and burst if put under load for too long or incorrectly charged. The more costly units aren't any more immune to this than this lower end unit.

Overall Review: this product stands quite high in its class and its made by arguably the most well known company in the business. replacement batteries are very easy to find and will remain that way for a long time.