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Shawn C.

Shawn C.

Joined on 06/06/09

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Most Favorable Review

Great in Fractal North

Fractal Design Flex 2 PCIe 4.0 x16 Black Vertical GPU Riser with Bracket
Fractal Design Flex 2 PCIe 4.0 x16 Black Vertical GPU Riser with Bracket

Pros: Quality, size

Overall Review: Happy that this didn't add much length to an already huge ROG Strix 3090, that can now get cooler air in the Mesh case. Saw temps drop by 5c - 6c in gaming across the board. I managed to get the card in with a Phanteks 360 radiator mounted in the front of the case, just be careful when doing so as there is less than a centimeter between the card and radiator now.

11/28/2023
Most Critical Review

Poor thermal design

Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 4000 (PC4 32000) Desktop Memory Model PVS416G400C9K
Patriot Viper Steel 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR4 4000 (PC4 32000) Desktop Memory Model PVS416G400C9K

Pros: Great price Fast enough

Cons: Poor Thermal design Poor thermal pads

Overall Review: I've ran this in my Ryzen 9 5900X, RTX 3090 build for the last year or so in a 32GB (4x8 GB) setup. Ran perfect with no issues until last month when my PC started hard crashing due to memory module failures. After investigating the sticks, the thermal pads and heatsinks were falling off and barely attached on a few sticks of the RAM. In fact the heatsinks have nothing physically connecting them to hold them on the RAM other than adhesive on the thermal pads which can wear out fairly quickly. This is a fairly large design flaw in my book. You can fix it with new thermal pads or buying aftermarket heatsinks, but at that point why not just buy a better set of RAM? Decent choice if you are in a pinch, but I would recommend spending an extra $50 and getting some better designed RAM.

12/16/2021

Stable and Easy to Update

GIGABYTE X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 AM5 LGA 1718, ATX, DDR5, 4x M.2, PCIe 5.0, USB4, Wi-Fi 7, 2.5GbE LAN, EZ-Latch, 5-Year Warranty
GIGABYTE X870E AORUS ELITE WIFI7 AM5 LGA 1718, ATX, DDR5, 4x M.2, PCIe 5.0, USB4, Wi-Fi 7, 2.5GbE LAN, EZ-Latch, 5-Year Warranty

Pros: Q-Flash BIOS with no CPU Boots extremely fast Stable - Zero crashes in two weeks of ownership. On-Board display port for BIOS with no GPU Easy to overclock memory (DDR5 6400)

Cons: Software from Windows installer is bugged

Overall Review: Install was very easy and I'm always impressed with the heft of Gigabyte boards. The Q-Flash update for the 9800X3D CPU was quick and painless. Booted right up with no errors immediately after. I had issues with the initial software installation that pops up with the first Windows boot (Wi-Fi drivers and chipset drivers failing to install). I uninstalled and downloaded the latest installer from the Gigabyte website and the problems were solved. Very happy with this board and its seems like a great value as well.

Easy to build in. Great Design

Fractal Design North ATX mATX Mid Tower PC Case - Charcoal Black Chassis with Walnut Front and Mesh Side Panel
Fractal Design North ATX mATX Mid Tower PC Case - Charcoal Black Chassis with Walnut Front and Mesh Side Panel

Pros: Lots of removable panels Solid build quality Very unique wood accents

Cons: Running 360 rad in front will limit large video cards

Overall Review: Very happy with the looks and air flow from the Fractal North. I have the Black / mesh and I've had my build running in it for about 2 weeks now. I really like the way the mesh side panel diffuses the RGB in the case and the wood matches the natural wood tones that I'm going for as I remodel my office. The temps stay nice and low with my ROG Strix 3090 never getting too hot. The temps actually stay lower than my PC011 I had before, I think mostly due to the mesh side panel. Don't get too thick of a front radiator if you have a large GPU, there is about 1cm of clearance for my Strix 3090 and I'd say this radiator is roughly 30mm thick. Very easy to build in, with great cable management lanes for a mid-tower case. I see myself running in this case for years to come. Absolutely love it. Build: Ryzen 9 5900X ASUS Crosshair VIII Dark Hero ASUS ROG Strix 3090 OC Corsair Vengeance 32gb @ 3600mhz Phaanteks Glacier One 360 MPH Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000W

Started Out Great, But Then.... A Bad SATA Cable

Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000W 80+ Platinum, 10 Years Warranty, ECO Fanless & Silent Mode, Full Flat Ribbon Modular Power Supply, Dual Ball Bearing Fan, SF-1000F14MP V2
Super Flower Leadex Platinum SE 1000W 80+ Platinum, 10 Years Warranty, ECO Fanless & Silent Mode, Full Flat Ribbon Modular Power Supply, Dual Ball Bearing Fan, SF-1000F14MP V2

Pros: Decent price Lots of modular connections Lots of modular cables Very Quiet

Cons: Had a bad SATA cable in the bunch, which was causing major issues with the power supply.

Overall Review: This PSU was great at first, but after about 4 days of running on my server I noticed it was extremely hot to the touch and components were failing throughout the morning. I powered off the server due to PSU heat concerns, especially considering the server was only pulling about 500w total power from the wall. I'm very concerned damage may have been caused to my components, but I don't have a spare PSU laying around to test. Update: Components are good. After some trouble shooting I found out whenever one of the SATA cables was plugged in it was causing all of the issues above. Going to get ahold of Super Flower for a replacement. Would give it 3 1/2 stars if possible.

Worked Great

GIGABYTE X570 GAMING X AMD Ryzen 3000 PCIe 4.0 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.2 AMD X570 ATX Motherboard
GIGABYTE X570 GAMING X AMD Ryzen 3000 PCIe 4.0 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.2 AMD X570 ATX Motherboard

Pros: Worked out of the box. Easy installation. Performance for price is great.

Cons: Software could be better. No USB-C header. Limited IO

Overall Review: I have had no issues with this board at all. Installed it and booted right up. I was replacing an older i5 6600K and ASUS Z170 board, with a Ryzen 5 3600 due to bottle-necks is some games with my GTX 1080. Paired well with my Patriot Viper DDR4 4000 RAM. Only real complaint is no USB-C header on the board, but I'm just going to add an expansion card down the road. Seeing much better performance on Insurgency: Sandstorm and COD: Modern Warfare with no overclocking yet. Giving this a 5 Star since the price and performance far outweighs the few cons. Note: Older Corsair liquid coolers do not come with the AM4 bracket so you will have to order one to use with this board and AM4 CPUs.