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Nickolas N.

Nickolas N.

Joined on 05/30/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review

Future Proof

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: i love that this board natively supports sata 3 and usb 3 it's also supposed to be compatable with upcoming hexacores the layout of this board is terrific (but i suppose that's relative to your setup) it also looks quite sharp... wasn't sure at first, but it looks great in my setup the onboard audio is excellent for my purposes of music and movies - couldn't comment on it's recording capabilities and such the onboard video is sufficive to play current games on low settings/low resolution seems pretty snappy so far works out of the box with the Phenom II X4 965BE, 125 watt, C3 version works out of the box with CMD4GX3M2B1600C8 Corsair Dominator ram (see other thoughts) also... if you mess up an overclock with your ram (which i've done: hence i know) the "MemOk" button sets it back to postable/bootable (perhaps not optimal) settings with a simple push

Cons: none yet

Overall Review: i was able to set my ram spec'ed at 8 cas latency to 7 on the asus 785g board i replaced with this (that board worked flawlessly too, i just prefered the layout and future proofing of this one), but it refuses to boot at 7 with this board (same exact everything, just different mobo). not a big deal, since it runs it perfectly at it's specs also, something weird... the north bridge is 890GX and the south bridge is 850: however, cpu-z reads the north as 785gx and the south as 750. called asus on this, they assured me all is as advertised, and they're not putting one over one me: which i figured anyway; just called for my peace of mind i don't like reviewing things after only having had them for a couple of hours, but there's no reviews on this board yet (well, from anyone that actually owns and operates it); so, i hope this little bit might be able to help you out. if anything goes deathly wrong in the short future, i'll do another review

Most Critical Review

didn't work out for me

CORSAIR ValueSelect 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMV4GX3M2A1333C9
CORSAIR ValueSelect 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMV4GX3M2A1333C9

Pros: first off, let me say: i'm a huge corsair fan. if they make a product, i usually go with them before anyone else. i bought the single stick version of this ram for a build a while back: worked fine this time, with the kit... didn't work out for me corsair i give more than 2 stars, but this particular product i had a real bad experience with

Cons: when i built the system for a client, it would freeze up on 3dmark06 it would also freeze during most any game after the ram passed memtest, it seemed like a video card issue to me so, i rma'ed the video card: not too long after the computer started having this strange problem of always saying "windows did not shut down properly" every time it was left off for over 4 hours again, i ran memtest on the ram: passed i then tested it with the same program in my machine: passed so, i thought the only thing that could be responsible was the mobo or the power supply i ripped the power supply out of my comp, used it on his rig: did the same thing so, i rma'ed the mobo, and got a replacement: still had the same problem that meant it was either the ram or the cpu, but the nature of a bad cpu didn't correlate at all with these problems; so, i googled "can ram pass memtest and still be bad"... turns out it can; and it was

Overall Review: rma's took me a week to get sent back to the factory, then about another half a week to have them send me a new one... that's 3 weeks between the video card and the mobo, which i rma'ed unnecessarily then, as i said, the problem only occurred after the system was off for over four hours, so that put trouble shooting down to about an idea a day all in all... this ram being bad put me through an absolute nightmare: if it was my time and money, i wouldn't have cared so much but it was a client build, and he had to wait almost a month after he handed a whole hand full of dollars to get a working comp: very stressful for both of us moral of the story: i do love corsair, i can't say i'll stay away from them from now on; but i will stay away from this particular ram so, if you experience similar problems, don't rule out that it could be the ram, just because it passes memtest build was: asus m4a88td-v evo amd phenom II x4 945 95watt corsair 400watt psu asus 5670

Mushkin

Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe 2.5" 60GB SATA III Synchronous MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDCR60GB-DX
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe 2.5" 60GB SATA III Synchronous MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MKNSSDCR60GB-DX

Pros: Worked out of the box with my setup: M4A89GTD Pro/Usb3 965BE Phenom II X4 Corsair Dominator 1600C8 Linux Mint 10 Made in the USA - I can't even find a pair of shoes made in the USA any more

Cons: Haven't had any yet

Overall Review: I know this probably isn't a particularly helpful review; however, I think a lot of products tend to get a bad review percentage, cause the majority of people are more apt to only leave a review if they have complaints. Also, a lot of people just plain don't know what they're doing; operator error / ignorance. So, I just wanted to testify that this SSD worked out great for me, and I'm very satisfied with it.

eye candy

HP 2159m Black 21.5" 5ms, 3ms(GTG) HDMI Full HD 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor 1000:1 Built in Speakers
HP 2159m Black 21.5" 5ms, 3ms(GTG) HDMI Full HD 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor 1000:1 Built in Speakers

Pros: very crisp, bright, and clear the size is perfect too, any bigger might actually be too big, unless you sit more than a couple of feet behind your monitor. i'm sitting about 2 and a half feet away, and any wider would start going into my peripheral vision i went to a bunch of stores to actually check out the display of monitors, and i found that hp monitors were always the ones the drew my eyes, they are far more crisp than most other monitors (tech at one of the stores attributed it hp "brightview" technology). most others seemed kind of muddy to me i also found that the menu was the most user friendly out of all of the ones that i had used. if it takes me much more than a couple of seconds just to figure out how to change the color settings and turn the menu back off, there's a problem

Cons: i honestly haven't run into any yet

Overall Review: the asus monitors i saw were nearly as crisp as these, but my eye still always went to the hp. also, i found the menu of the hp monitors more intuitive than the asus ones; but, they might be worth checking out too i had to order this monitor online, which made me a little nervous. UPS doesn't have the best reputation of being gentle with there shipments, and i've personally recieved a doa that i think they're probably responsible for. but i spent an entire day going to every store in the city that sells monitors: everyone had the 21 inch model (which isn't 1080p) and the 23 inch model (which is a little more expensive then i wanted to go, and like i said up top, might actually be too big for me), but absolutely no one carried this one: the 21.5 inch model which is 1080p, and a reasonable price for my budget all is well though, monitor got delivered undamaged, and in a timely fashion

Rock Solid!

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: owned this board for about a month and a half now (wrote the review "future proof") about a week ago i did something incredibly absent minded: i forgot i had two 120mm fans linked together on one line, i thought it was just the one so, i plugged it (them) into the cha_fan header on my board, and it surged the board: smoke, fireworks show, small portion of the board charred: the whole nine i thought for sure the board was done if i didn't make it clear enough, this was 100% MY FAULT i've been running it full throttle for the past week now, and i have noticed absolutely nothing wrong: extremely impressed reminder from my original post: hexacore ready ddr3 usb 3 sata 3 great onboard audio: it's realtek, which is way better than the via audio on some of their boards best onboard video out there: playing battlefield bad company 2 on low settings chipset heatsinks are very efficient: stay cool "memok" is nice bundled software gears the cpu down when it's not under load (ca

Cons: none

Overall Review: this is my third asus board i have one from 2001 (forgot the model) that still runs like a champ i had one from 2003 (original crosshair) that i just sold to a buddy, and it's still running great i convinced my friend to buy one (m3a32-mvp) in 2004, and he's probably playing WOW on it at this very moment asus didn't earn it's reputation for nothing; i don't even look at other boards this all worked out of the box (right around $900): Antec P183 CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AMD Phenom II X4 965 (125 watt version) CORSAIR DOMINATOR, 4gb, 1600(CMD4GX3M2B1600C8) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB ASUS 24X DVD+R.....

SUNON KD1212PTB1-6A Case Cooling Fan
SUNON KD1212PTB1-6A Case Cooling Fan

Pros: they move a great amount of air got one mounted in front of my hard drives, and it keeps them pretty much room temp (old IDE drives, one from 2001... they get HOT without) heck, i wouldn't be surprised if they've lowered the ambient temperature of my entire room

Cons: none, if you don't mind noise

Overall Review: alright... everyone says they're loud, but let me go into detail... (i've got 2 going, by the way) i can not talk on my cell phone within 10 feet of my running comp anymore i can shut the door of my room, go into the bathroom 15 feet away and shut that door, and i can still hear my computer they're LOUD, make no mistake... you must absolutely not mind this if you plan on buying them