Pros: It just works and doesn't get absurdly hot. It whips around what I throw at it, mostly shader and GPGPU demos and lightweight games, no new AAA titles. I could play L4D2 or Portal in Linux with all the quality/detail turned all the way up and it handled that, no trouble.

Cons: Can't overclock in Linux yet and nVidia says fixing the reclocking part in their driver and re-enabling Coolbits is a low priority for them. The same applies to Fermi and Maxwell so it's not a big deal here. Since it's only PCI-E 8x, the PCB is *small* and that seems neat until you realize that the PCI-E slot can't lock it in place because it doesn't reach the lock. That has to be so with all x1,x4,x8 cards but I doubt so many of them have to worry about this big crazy heatsink to stabilize with just some friction and a screw and the rigidity of your case. On the other other hand, if there's a closed-end x8 slot, this will fit in it. I don't mind, because...

Overall Review: This seems perfect for strapping to an aging laptop as eGPU because the PCI-E bandwidth is already limited and the 12V aux supply can be almost puny. I'm glad to see the price hasn't dropped in 4 months even though another core architecture came out in the meantime.

Pros: Worked immediately and normally in knoppix

Cons: The notch on PCI edge connector was too narrow and rough so inserting and removing was a nasty operation requiring far too much force for comfort and grinding the PCI slot a bit.

Overall Review: Didn't try the raid function in the card BIOS at all, will be using Linux builtin software raid and this as only a 2-port controller in an old P-4.

Pros: SATA ports worked when I tried them. It *did* boot from CDROM in legacy mode on the UEFI mobo and even says CDROM on the boot ROM screen by the firmware version even though SYBA says CDROM boot is not supported. IDE CDROMs worked some of the time, on some discs.

Cons: I got this specifically to squeeze the last life out of a pair of ATAPI DVD burners using a single IDE cable (the Gigabyte H81M-HD3 has no IDE but PCI), and it almost worked out. But the first sign of trouble was when trying to copy an audio CD, I found the drive would fail to find the disc and even Explorer would hang up the [My] Computer window trying to read and update its icons for the drives. If there was an audio disc in when the boot ROM was detecting media, it would stall for many seconds before the UEFI could even start reading hard disks. Other kinds of discs worked, especially DVDs. The SYBA support tech suggested PCI is too old & slow a bus for this task (even though PCI IDE adapters & RAID cards are older than DDR, PCI isn't magically getting slower, and SYBA specifically designed and marketed a card for the purpose) and the SYBA forum had nothing to say for months. Recently I attempted to burn a Linux ISO to a blank 700M CD but something in this failing configuration kept Nero Express from even getting to the point where it would show a window, and Infracorder and ImgBurn threw errors while trying to find burners as well. I just replaced it with a pair of IDE-SATA adapters and all the problems evaporated. I seriously considered doing that in the first place and I'm rather sorry I didn't, because the 10-15 USD difference would have cost me a little educational experience but saved a ton of frustration.

Overall Review: I can't remember a drive choking specifically on audio discs or a controller being able to make it do so, before this. It's bizarre. I thought about downgrading the ROM to something that matched the chip but the flash utility couldn't find the card. I wondered if it needed to be put into an older PC but never tried it because I wanted to not get further in. It might have been alright to just keep audio discs away from the machine but then Windows started spontaneously stalling on a Vista-like boot screen for minutes at a time instead of just booting in 20 seconds like usual, but only a few times before I decided the card had to go. If that happens again now that the card is out I will be very surprised and make a note here (if I even can).

Pros: Just a bit of an addendum: all the L4D2 and Portal trouble-free HQ play was on a Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0GHz with 6GB DDR2-800, at the TV's native 1360x768 over HDMI and with no overclocking anywhere.

Cons: Coolbits is back since shortly after my 1st review where I said nVidia wasn't on it, so that was wrong... derp. I haven't played with it yet.

Pros: Just got done using one of these to run 'badblocks -wvs' on a brand new 2TB drive before putting backups on it, so that means it read and wrote 2TB four times each (bit patterns 0xAA, 0x55, 0xFF, and 0x00) at about 25MB/s (both reading and writing) according to dstat. That in turn means this thing ran as fast as it could, nonstop for about 170 hours-- over a week. I can't say exactly how long it took because I wasn't here to see the end but it was above 160 hours last night and at 55% of the last pass, it looked like it had 10 or 12 hours to go. Also, occasionally I used the machine for other things that slowed it down a bit, sometimes to 23MB/s. Anyway, it passed my test. The assembly seems fairly solid and putting it together was a piece of cake.

Cons: I wish USB wasn't so slow. 25MB/s is what my old A-data 2GB dual channel USB flash drive averages. I hate wall wart type AC adapters... I like them to have 2 wires leading out, one for the wall so you can plug it into power strips and such without covering other plugs, and so the plug isn't holding up the weight. Of course which way the bulk of the converter sticks out determines what type of power strip will hold it conveniently and what other type will have 3 or 4 plugs covered up but at least this thing is narrow enough that in the ideal cases of both vertical-oriented strips and regular outlets, it won't obstruct the one above or below. The LED is at one end with the electronics and they just sort of allow the light to bounce around down to the other end where the window is. This makes it a bit dim and very hard to see from the side... in order to check for activity, you have to either set it up pointing toward you or position something to catch that light in front of the win

Overall Review: USB 2.0 kind of defeats the purpose of having a 7200RPM 64MB HDD, since it's no longer the disk itself being the slowest link in the chain. But, that's the disk that was on sale a week ago, so that's the drive that went in the new offsite backup kit. I wish all these computers had eSATA ports.

Pros: it lived through 53 hours of write,read,write,read. it's probably not going to die soon.

Cons: it doesn't come with migration utils, have to go find some so I can move in without reinstalling windows or else dd_rescue and then ntfs-resize it though I'd rather make some sensible partitions

Overall Review: it's a drive, it's great, it's cheaper than my own 320GB ATA 2.5" WD blue drive that i couldn't avoid due to having this old craptop :)