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WILLARD L.

WILLARD L.

Joined on 06/05/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Big bang for your buck IMO.

COUGAR MX600 RGB Black Mid Tower Gaming Case, 400mm GPU supported, built-in Front 140mm ARGB Fan x3 & Rear 120mm ARGB Fan x1, E-ATX supported along with 8 Expansion Slots
COUGAR MX600 RGB Black Mid Tower Gaming Case, 400mm GPU supported, built-in Front 140mm ARGB Fan x3 & Rear 120mm ARGB Fan x1, E-ATX supported along with 8 Expansion Slots

Pros: Shipped well packaged with all advertised parts plus some nice extras. Budget friendly, but without any of the usual flimsy cheap feel anywhere in the build. If it's not the best airflow case on the market, it's surely a contender. Well-designed magnetic fasteners - you don't turn one screw to get in and out of the case. Easy access filter screens cover every major air intake area. So clean and quiet.

Cons: Still looking for a downside.

Overall Review: Recommended! I was impressed that the extra parts arrived in a nice functional storage tray (no screws in baggies, etc.) and included a half dozen stick-on cabling guides and some zip ties among all the advertised pieces for vertical GPU mounting, etc. Everything an unstocked first-time builder would need to accomplish the task. The included fan/lighting hub functioned with the MB PWM controller for the case fans, so I'll take their word that the ARGB (which I don't have) does too; but the default "canned" light shows work fine. Decent quality fans run quiet as you can expect without adding sound dampening materials. Never thought I'd say this about a case at this price-point, but nothing feels cheap, and the good design engineering coupled with good materials yielded a very nice case to work with here - and it looks GOOD - thank you Cougar.

Most Critical Review

Could not resolve boot issues.

ASUS PRIME X870-P WIFI AMD AM5 X870 ATX motherboard 14+2+1 80A DrMOS power stages, DDR5, PCIe 5.0 , PCIe 5.0 x16, Q-Release, 4x M.2 , Wi-Fi 7, Q-Antenna, 2.5Gb LAN, USB4, USB Type-C, BIOS FlashBack
ASUS PRIME X870-P WIFI AMD AM5 X870 ATX motherboard 14+2+1 80A DrMOS power stages, DDR5, PCIe 5.0 , PCIe 5.0 x16, Q-Release, 4x M.2 , Wi-Fi 7, Q-Antenna, 2.5Gb LAN, USB4, USB Type-C, BIOS FlashBack

Pros: - I caught it on sale, so I didn't have to eat the whole price shown here. - People who got a board that boots dependably have likely got a good system.

Cons: Please see the "overall review" for the whole sad story.

Overall Review: Early May 2025: Assembled components for pretest and it would not boot - researched problems folks were having with new A5 systems with the lengthy RAM testing/recognition and figured that a new BIOS (none were out then) would likely fix it and since life was happening busily for the next several months, I didn't get back with it for a while. April 2026 (30 days gone by already?) About 8 BIOS updates had occured so I installed the latest with ASUS BIOS FlashBack - no joy on the boot. I played with serially resetting and powering down with quick restarts until I forced the board into presenting an error out screen (bypassing RAM training maybe) that finally gave the option of opening the boot program to "recover bios" variables. So I took that opportunity to get a system on the M.2 SSD and update chipset, wi-fi, etc. to latest values; restarts and all during the process went smoothly. But, once the system was off for a while, it would not boot again without going through a half hour of fiddling with it - once it was on, it was fine. So, now I'm thinking that (although the whole RAM test thing may still be valid) there is perhaps a circuit that isn't operating until I warm the system up a bit by constant resetting and all. Anyway, I'm thinking I got an anomaly that I can neither return nor live with. Got a refurbished: GIGABYTE B650E AORUS ELITE X AX ICE board for a nice price here on Newegg, swapped the gear to it with no hiccups from there on out. I can't bad mouth the board, when I could finally get it to boot each time, it did everything I asked for - anyway they can have this one back.

Has some quality control issues, but, it's a good cooler.

RAIJINTEK THEMIS II, a stable and superb quality Air cooler, TDP 175W, Compatible with INTEK LGA 1700 CPU, with 5 eXtreme-performing 6mm heat-pipes, a silently performing 12025 PWM fan, User friendly.
RAIJINTEK THEMIS II, a stable and superb quality Air cooler, TDP 175W, Compatible with INTEK LGA 1700 CPU, with 5 eXtreme-performing 6mm heat-pipes, a silently performing 12025 PWM fan, User friendly.

Pros: AMD 5600x with the gimme Stealth Wraith cooler on a X470 ROG Strix ran 95°C-105°C while playing Starfield; it never throttled but 95°C is supposed to be the top end for that CPU. Now runs 70°C-75°C under full load.

Cons: Needed 10 minutes of hacksaw work cutting a small slot in the aluminum so that the A4 bracket holes would line up with the cooler block. The A4 brackets have a slight bend at the end and they must both be oriented in the same direction (a little counter intuitive) for the screws to match the backplate mount.

Overall Review: I dropped 20°C-25°C from the stock cooler for under $20. Got no complaints, really. Thermal paste was in small syringe. If you're capable of a little backwoods engineering it will do a great job for little effort.

Well designed and engineered case - easy to work in and a good power supply.

Rosewill SRM-01B-450 Micro ATX Mini Tower Desktop PC Computer Case with Pre-Installed 450W PSU, 80mm Case Fan, USB 3.0
Rosewill SRM-01B-450 Micro ATX Mini Tower Desktop PC Computer Case with Pre-Installed 450W PSU, 80mm Case Fan, USB 3.0

Pros: Well engineered. Good example of structural strength using light materials. Plenty of room inside IMO. Also good cable management options IMO. Extra safe to work with - every edge was rolled. Case + a good PSU at a good price (and on sale when I got it).

Cons: Light materials could disturb some folks, wasn't a problem for me.

Overall Review: I bought two to assemble computers for grandchillins. First thought was "Wow, they used some light materials here!. Second thought was "The structural engineering more than makes up for the light materials. This is a great case.". I've gash myself on a case at sometime during every previous build I've done, but not this one - rolled edges everywhere. There are a lot of pros who wince when you say your case came with a PSU - but Rosewill DOES make PSUs and I doubt they would jeopardize their name here just to make a few cents more. I used an ASRock A520M/ac mATX board (WI-FI, BTooth), AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Seagate 510M (1T) in the M2, and an EVGA GTX 970 - all components maxed should pull under 350W and just cruising the web at well under 200W - easily within the abilities of a 450W PSU. I had PLENTY of room left over in the case. Optical drive would NOT be a problem nor would three SSDs for RAID, or one SSD (maybe two) with a 3-1/2" HD and a large video card is no problem. The extra cabling goes best on the back side (yes - just cut the damties and spread that rope out thin and tie it down - they fit easily; just think it out and have patience) leaving a nice clean looking build inside; you're not going to see it anyway but... So.. if you want pretty flashy lights showtime computer, you prolly ain't reading this review anyway - but, if you want a well thought out case design that's easy to work with and a 450W PSU fits your projected build requirements then Rosewill has just what you need.

Plug and Play

CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX12GX3M3A1333C9
CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX12GX3M3A1333C9

Pros: CORSAIR, nice heat sinking - just good stuff!

Cons: I just installed these and I will update this review if anything occurs. But, I expect no problems from Corsair memory.

Overall Review: Order came promptly and was well packaged [got two (2) sets to max out a scavenged Alienware Aurora ALX MB @ 24gb]. Had an initial concern as one end of one stick's container had been cut open with a box knife (why?, they open easily) and these were not sold to me as an "open box" package. However, all sticks posted/tested so I'm good to go.