Joined on 12/14/07
Great
Pros: By FAR the very best sound card I have ever used with Linux (Mint 10/Ubuntu). No feedback, distortion, or pops. Small card and is PCIE, so there are many mounting options in a cramped situation with few open places for cards like mine. Drivers and interface are excellent in Windows 7 and have a nice EQ and bass crossover plus different surround options. Much better than Realtek on-board audio.
Cons: My wife got upset that I paid more than $15 for a sound card. But I worked overtime that week and think I deserve to splurge on some nice tech.
Overall Review: In Linux I enable the surround feature in Also by going through the terminal, but card was plug and play, Linux came with the drivers all set up in advance.
Good for price
Pros: With sata 3 cable, AHCI enabled, and AMD software patch installed in Win 7 gets a 7.3 WEI score. Fast boot in both Windows and Linux Mint 10.
Cons: I can't get benchmarks even close to what's advertised. SATA cable does not lock in or secure well and easily comes loose.
Overall Review: Still a good price per gig. Happier with OCZ 40 gig that this replaced that now is in my laptop.
Performance on budget
Pros: Running cool at 1.84v and 1732mhz. Good heat spreaders. Reliable so far (only owned a couple months). 7.7 Windows Experience score.
Cons: Exceeded expectations, so none.
Overall Review: If you choose to clock these sticks, figuring out the right latencies can be tricky at first and should be done in a BIOS with many adjustment options ideally. Works well with the Biostar AMD870 Motherboard I have and Phenom four core processor and 1600watt power supply(overkill, but got good deal on it). OC hardware at your own risk, my results require a strong knowledge and some luck.
Good budget four-core
Pros: Upgraded PC with this CPU, cheepo Biostar amd 770 board and two cheap AMD DDR3 memory sticks. Clocked to 4.05 and running stable with only a 0.15v increase and lowering cas latency to 5 on memory; running at DDR 800 timing limit. 7.5 WEI on both processor and memory. Using 4 year old air cooled copper heat sink with 120mm fan, runs so cool that mobo even cycles fan off at times. 6mb L3 is nice too. A good deal!
Cons: Only 7.5 WEI, but is that really a con?
Overall Review: I almost regret not getting a black edition, but I can use the money I saved for a nice dinner. Still scores about 7 WEI without overclocking, so overclock is not needed. ( I also do NOT expressly endorse or recommend overclocking any hardware.)
Pros: Stable overclocked to 3.1 gig at 1.4v on motherboard. Can overclock to 3.24 gig in windows at 1.45v and runs stable while gaming. And I do not have liquid cooling. HT runs up to 2.5 gig. stable. Exelent price for the chip. Got nice AMD hat for free.
Cons: None
Overall Review: Fast enough to more than make up for windows security and anti virus programs consuming resources, even while game is running. My old P4 would freeze programs and get stuck at 100% usage for a while often times. (with or without a game running).