Joined on 06/26/07
Great OC motherboard
Pros: Alot of OC options, detailed control over voltage, memory timing, etc. 1333mhz FSB allows you alot of room for OCing, even if your processor's multiplier locked or less than 8x. But I would recommend a 9x multiplier processor such as the E2160, E6600, E6700, and E6850. Of course an C2D extreme can never hurt either. Of these processors, E2160 will give you the best value and best OC results.
Cons: Seems to be a very sturdy motherboard, but very small space left for CPU heatsink and fan. There are two big motherboard heatsinks that can possibly get in your way if you decide on a bigger CPU heatsink. Motherboard failed to boot after I took off the heatsink to apply some arctic silver, could not find the reason why. Clearing CMOS did not help. After I took out one memory stick, it finally turned on in single channel mode, after that it ran normally. I think possibly one memory bank went bad, but not a big deal, I'm using the other two banks in dual channel mode.
Overall Review: If you try to OC and the motherboard does not boot correctly (e.g. no monitor image, hangs at logo screen), sometimes clearing the CMOS is not enough. You have to clear the CMOS, then press INSERT+Power On button in order to start. Or else your monitor will go blank and the computer will hang.
Exellent Drive
Pros: Absolutely best highest capacity HDD there is out there with the lowest price/gb ratio. Uses high density 320GB platter. HD TACH reports an avg sequential read speed of over 90mb, that's best of any HDD I have seen of this price level, comparable to even the raptor drives (which cost much much more per GB).
Cons: none
Overall Review: runs cool and quiet. WD has made this drive a winner, a true seagate killer. Seagate's current generation hard drives have alot of problems right now (just see the reviews). Samsung's F1 spinpoint has compatibility issues. Get this HDD instead.
Solid board!!
Pros: Very good, solid motherboard, has alot of BIOS options for overclocking. Able to set my 2500k to 4.8ghz without any problems on 1.37v.
Cons: Memory slots are kinda wacky. Only one side has clamps, so you will need to push hard to set the memory on the other side first. Board came with old BIOS that did not even appear on ASUS website. After upgrading BIOS, you should reset CMOS, because my system was not stable after updating BIOS to Beta 1053 but before clearing CMOS.
Overall Review: I don't see why there are so many bad reviews. I think most people are still trying to run the motherboard using original BIOS or did not seat the RAM correctly. I find it ridiculous some guy gave the board 1 star because the ignoramus could not find the QLC vendor list on Asus website, and he ranked himself as "high" tech knowledge?!?!? Come on dude, learn to use the internet!
Very nice
Pros: Sounds very good as promised. I'm not an audiophile but these do sound very good. Simple yet effective construction. Very very good sound isolation. I do not like high bass levels, and these are perfect for my taste. Feels very light on the head & travel friendly. Highly adjustable with regard to head sizes.
Cons: The cord goes from the right side of the headphone and becomes very inconvenient since i'm right handed (like most people), these get in my way of moving my mouse. As far as I can see, although the cord is unpluggable from the ear pieces, the right and left channels cannot be swapped since the right channel cord is always on the short end of the headphone (very hard to describe without seeing a picture, but take my word for it). The good sound isolation comes at a cost of high clamping pressure on your ears, which is actually uncomfortable during the first 10 minutes, but something i can get used to after that, until my ears starts to feel sore after 30 minutes or so. As mentioned by someone else, these do not come with the standard pleather pads that can be installed on the ear pieces.
Overall Review: Very good for the money when it was on sale @ Newegg.
Good board, bad CD, No Cooler
Pros: I never had any problems with ECS motherboards, they are cheap and pretty well built, albeit the OC options are not great. The Combo works faster than I thought in Windows XP, very speedy.
Cons: Like others said, the CD is bad. It actually feezes my computer. All you really need is the LAN driver, then you can download rest from the web once you got internet access.
Overall Review: The CPU COOLER IS NOT INCLUDED!! I thought it was included and was waiting to build my computer and had to go out to buy one that cost me alot extra. Do yourself a favor and order the cheap Cooler Master Socket 754 cooler on Newegg that cost you 5 bones + shipping.
Best pc6400 RAM
Pros: These are absolutely the best RAM for DDR2 pc6400. Extremely overclockable, even more than the Crucial Ballistix. I thought my ballistix was already fast for doing 4-4-4-12 @ 956 @2.3v. These ram can do 4-4-4-12 @ 1014 @2.3v!!! that's just amazingly fast.
Cons: Aboslutely none.
Overall Review: Remember to put a fan on the ram @ 2.2v and above, so they don't overheat