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Kyle L.

Kyle L.

Joined on 12/12/06

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Decent case

LIAN LI PC-7FN Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
LIAN LI PC-7FN Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Clean and simple, yet sophisticated looks. If you don't want a case that looks like a Tron monstrosity (read as every other case manufacturer), this is the one for you. - Quiet (if fans are run at reasonable speed. Included fans are pretty noisy at 100%). - All aluminum. Easily modable. - Excellent hard-drive mounting system. Decent 5" and 3" drive mounting (toolless 5" mounting could do better at absorbing vibration) - 8 PCI slots support XFire/SLI with cards spaced apart, even for motherboards where the second double-width card takes up the 7th/8th slots.

Cons: - Minimal fan mounts. If you plan on running a high-end CPU and GPU you'll need to mod in an extra intake and exhaust fan. Running the included fans at 100% can cool even powerful systems (if you're not doing crazy overclocking), but is quite noisy. Lian Li sells some optional top/side panels with fan mountings you can switch in, but they're expensive and almost impossible to find. - Front fan is attached directly to case, so the case can pick up vibrations from it. Rear fan has vibration mounts, and Lian Li put a lot of thought into making the PSU and hard-drive mounts vibration free, so I don't see why they did not do that here.

Overall Review: A number of annoying little things that needed fixing: - Power/HDD LEDs leak into one another. Also a bit of light from the power LED leaks out between the top and side panel. Easily fixed with a bit of black electrical tape to stop the leaks. - Feet are pretty short. Put it in a carpeted living room (that's just how my aparment is) and your PSU will be sucking in carpet rather than air. - Can't turn off the fan LEDs. Easily fixed in a couple minutes with a pair of wire cutters It's a good case when it's on sale for $100. Seems overpriced at normal price ($140). The Lian Li PC-8FI has better features ands sells for just a smidgen more than that price.

12/15/2010
Most Critical Review

Good overall, one significant annoyance

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 750GB USB 2.0 3.5" External Hard Drive ST307504FDA1E1-RK
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 750GB USB 2.0 3.5" External Hard Drive ST307504FDA1E1-RK

Pros: Works fast and seems to be reliable. Setup was very easy. Runs a lot cooler than my previous external drive. Personally, I like the power-saving spin-down feature, as it prevents the drive from spinning idly for days on end (as sometimes happened with my previous drive when I forgot to switch it off).

Cons: When you Hibernate a Windows machine with the drive attached, it takes an extra 5-10 seconds to restart. At some point early in the boot process it blocks waiting for the drive to spin up. This can not be avoided without physically disconnecting either the USB or power cable. Using "Safely Remove Hardware" in Windows before hibernating doesn't make a difference - it still blocks the boot process (although the drive isn't available in Windows after resuming). A very annoying and unavoidable waste of time. The case design will be annoying if you want to carry it around with you. Doesn't affect me, and it does look cool.

Overall Review: I found to my chagrin after buying it on newegg that it was $25 less at another online retailer that I trust.

Great memory

G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3L 1333 (PC3L 10600) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL7D-4GBECO
G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3L 1333 (PC3L 10600) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL7D-4GBECO

Pros: - Low voltage. The great thing about this memory is that 1.35 volts translates into way less heat than comparable modules that need 1.65 volts to get the same timings. (Power is proportional to the square of voltage, so these use 33% less power and generate 33% less heat than competing modules.) After running a set of 1.65V modules that I could barely touch after running the system for a while, I now truly appreciate how much of a difference that makes. These modules barely get lukewarm after hours of intensive use (Prime95, etc). - Good timings. - Cheap. They're maybe $5-10 more than 1.65V modules with the same timings (normal prices, not sale/rebate prices). Maybe less depending on when exactly you look. For the heat difference that's well worth paying.

Cons: Could not get to 6-6-6 timings@1333 even with upping the voltage to 1.65. Would have been nice to do so, but I'm not really disappointed they didn't. Eco marketing. These sticks might (if you're running Prime95 24/7) save you 4W an hour, which is 35 kWHr a year. Or ~$4 in electricity cost. Not going to save the environment anywhere near as effectively as getting a more efficient CPU, PSU, GPU, giving up meat once a week, turning down the heat in your house by .1 degree, etc. My one regret with this memory is not being able to give it 4 1/2 stars just for the sliminess of this marketing. (I can't give it 4 stars because it is *great* memory and it does everything I want for the reasons I purchased it.)

Overall Review: Works great with in triple channel setup. Running 6 sticks (12 GB) on an Asus Rampage III Formula with an i7 950. Worked flawlessly once I manually set the voltage and timings. (Defaulted to 8-8-8-something and 1.5V.)

12/28/2010

Great PSU

Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply
Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply

Pros: - Provides all the power you could reasonably need. Based on reviews, it's supposed to have excellent voltage regulation and ripple, but I haven't measured those personally. - Silent. I've never heard the fan over other noise in my case. Unfortunately, based on other reviews, it seems this may vary based on which unit you get. - Efficient. Sure, it's not the best, but when you look at the price of the unit versus higher sivler/gold units and calculate the actual power savings over time, this is right in the sweet spot.

Cons: Could be more modular. But compare it to other PSUs in this price range and even the partial modularity of this unit is excellent. And with a bottom-mounted PSU, just tie up those unused cables in a nice bundle on the case bottom and they'll have no impact on airflow.

Overall Review: Great deal on Newegg's Black Friday sale. $80 can't be beat for this kind of power and quality. I would pay more than that for it.

12/15/2010

Good drive

LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer - Bulk - 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model iHAS224-06 LightScribe Support
LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer - Bulk - 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model iHAS224-06 LightScribe Support

Pros: Goes round and round. Reads and writes without issues.

Cons: Noisy at top speeds. "Black" color leaves something to be desired. It's more of a very dark gray.

12/15/2010