Joined on 01/12/04
My New Favorite Case
Pros: Quiet: I'm using the included rear 120mm tri-speed on medium, a front 92mm Antec tri-speed on low, Corsair 520HX PS with 120mm fan, Phenom II 945 (95W) with stock HSF, and a Sapphire Vapor-X 4850 512MB. I can hear a low whisper if I put my head near the back of the case, but it is easily overpowered by background noise. Seagate 7200.12 500MB is silent on silicone grommets. Cool: Temps (idle/3DMark) for Case (31/34C), CPU (34/41C), and GPU (36/54C) are impressive. That's in a house with no AC, ambient temps ~73F. Functional: Plenty of room and a clean layout. I love the posts behind the drive bay for wrapping up excess cable length. I have a couple of inches to spare between the Sapphire Vapor-X 4850 and the drive bay. Front HD Audio ports interface with my Creative X-Fi Titanium Pro.
Cons: The screws on the expansion slot covers in the back tend to overlap both slots, meaning you have to remove the screws above and below the slot to add/remove a card.
Overall Review: Be careful when taking off the side panels to pull them straight out until they are completely clear of the case body. I got in a rush and bent the lip of one side panel by letting it down before it was all the way out. I was able to bend it straight with pliers.
I got it working
Pros: Cheap, relatively powerful AGP card.
Cons: None.
Overall Review: My system would freeze as soon as I installed the drivers (Standard VGA mode worked fine). Troubleshooting, different drivers, and tweaking BIOS settings didn't help. I finally solved the problem by reinstalling Windows XP and using the "ACPI Uniprocessor" HAL (with APIC support) instead of the "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" HAL without APIC.
Comfortable, Clear, and Cheap!
Pros: I really like the wrap-around design. It's more comfortable than the standard over-head layout. As an added bonus, I can put the headphones down on my neck when I want to use my speakers, and the mic still adjusts right in front of my mouth. Sound quality is good given the size, and construction appears sturdy.
Cons: The pictures on the packaging of "gamers" jumping around with their keyboards are a bit much. ;)
Overall Review: Comes with a Logitech case badge. I'm not sure headphones merit a case badge, but that's up to your discretion.
Works great for me
Pros: I was hesitant to order this based on other reviews, but I'm glad I bought it. Fast, ample storage in a compact form factor. No heat problems running in a non-air conditioned room above 80 degrees F. I can't hear the drive unless I put my head against the case (Antec NSK4400 with rubber grommets).
Cons: The connectors on the back look vulnerable and unsupported, but I had no problems with them.
Overall Review: Operating with a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G motherboard in AHCI mode with no problems. Maybe some of the other problems reported here are chipset/mobo related?
Great RAM, cheap
Pros: Works great in a build with GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H and Athlon X2 4600+. Heat spreaders fit, even with two sticks side-by-side in close slots.
Cons: none
Overall Review: Includes a nice case sticker.
Good budget buy
Pros: Dual-core 2.4 GHZ processor runs cool and allows you to use DDR2-800 at full clock speed. Very responsive in games and Windows Vista Home Premium. Included heatsink and fan are adequate and quiet.
Cons: The instructions for installing the heatsink and fan could have been more clear. They also showed a different heatsink locking clip than was used on my model. Regardless, I figured it out with no problems.
Overall Review: Good for home and gaming use, as long as you aren't an uber-gamer who is counting every FPS in Crysis.