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William E.

William E.

Joined on 03/15/09

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review

Good price to performance ratio

G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-2133C10D-8GAB
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-2133C10D-8GAB

Pros: Super easy to set up with XMP and I haven't had any issues thus far.

Cons: Timings are a bit high for my taste, but I couldn't say no at the price point.

Overall Review: Used with I5 4690k and MSI Z97S SLI Plus.

Most Critical Review

A Major Disappointment

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler, 4 CDC Heatpipes, 120mm PWM Fan, Aluminum Fins for AMD Ryzen/Intel LGA1200/1151
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler, 4 CDC Heatpipes, 120mm PWM Fan, Aluminum Fins for AMD Ryzen/Intel LGA1200/1151

Pros: None

Cons: I really wanted to like this part, and in theory it sounded good, a cheap air cooler that cools as well as almost anything else on the market. However, that theory didn't hold up for many reasons. 1. This certainly is not the first CPU cooler I've had to install, yet it was so difficult to install that it took 5 attempts to get this cooler to sit right. I'm usually one and done. I really don't like to waste thermal paste like that. 2. The fan creates a terrible vibration under load. This is a common problem for this product, but usually doesn't happen after only a couple days of use like it did for me. 3. There's a decent chance this is related to problem 2, but the cooling abilities of this cooler have been disappointing so far, I'm getting temps in the mid 80s (under load) even though I've only overclocked my processor to 4.0ghz. I even delidded my i5 and replaced the intel TIM with artic silver 5. 4. Everything I'm reading says that cooler master makes you send your fan back to get a replacement. That makes no sense. Doing so would make the product inoperable until the new fan is received. I will change this review if my situation changes, but I'm not hopeful of that happening.

Overall Review: CPU: i5 4690k (lga 1150) MB: MSI z97S SLI Plus Case: RAIDMAX Viper GX ATX-512WBR Also, I will bump up my review by an egg if the rebate actually goes through.

Great case with plenty of space

RAIDMAX Viper GX ATX-512WBR Black / Red Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
RAIDMAX Viper GX ATX-512WBR Black / Red Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: This case made putting my PC together fairly easy the only thing I had to screw in was the MB, the SSD, the PSU, and my aftermarket cooler. Cable management was fairly easy even with a full atx motherboard, MSI Z97s SLI Plus. Used a Corsair HX850m as my PSU and all the cables fit behind the MB in the case. There's also tons of room for GPUs, as in I don't think there's a single PCIe GPU that wouldn't fit into this case easily. HDDs don't require tools to install, and the hot swap 2.5" bay on top could be useful in the future for different things. Everything works and the price point was reasonable.

Cons: I wish the case fans used 4 pin connectors instead of 3pin/molex, not a deal breaker by any means though.

Great MB so far

MSI Z97S SLI Plus LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
MSI Z97S SLI Plus LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: This seems to be a quality board that I got for less than a 3 digit price tag if the rebate goes through. It was easy to set up the XMP for my ram, overclock my cpu, and update the BIOS. It is one of the cheaper boards to support sli, but still seems to have decent quality. It also has plenty of fan headers that are spread out fairly evenly across the board.

Cons: I don't like mail in rebates, please just sell the product at the discounted rate.

Overall Review: CPU: i5 4690k Ram: G.Skill Ares 8GB DDR3 2133MHZ GPU: GTX 460 PSU: Corsair HX850M SSD: Crucial MX100 256GB Case: RAIDMAX Viper GX ATX-512WBR

Solid PSU

Corsair Certified CP-9020041-NA Enthusiast Series TX850M 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Semi Modular High Performance Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready
Corsair Certified CP-9020041-NA Enthusiast Series TX850M 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Semi Modular High Performance Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready

Pros: This is a very good PSU for the price, it's good enough to support sli in the future when I get a pair of GPUs in the future, and everything seems to be of good quality in general. It is dense, but that is a sign of a quality PSU. Honestly, I don't need this much power, but I couldn't say no at the price point given the quality I expected (and received).

Cons: Not as modular as I had hoped. The only modular cables were some of the pcie 6+2 connectors. Not a big issue but a way this product could be improved

Overall Review: Here's what this is powering in my mostly new PC build. CPU: i5 4690k MB: MSI z97s SLI Plus Ram: G.SKILL Ares 8GB ddr3 2133mhz GPU: GTX 460 (will upgrade to a pair of GTX 970s in the future) SSD: Crucial MX100 256GB HDD: Seagate 7200rpm 750GB drive from old PC Case: RAIDMAX Viper GX ATX-512WBR

Why don't all high level laptops ship with this?

ADATA 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3L 1600 (PC3L 12800) Laptop Memory Model AXDS1600GC4G9-2
ADATA 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3L 1600 (PC3L 12800) Laptop Memory Model AXDS1600GC4G9-2

Pros: All the ram specs posted seem accurate, except for the voltage, according to CPU-Z it's 1.28V instead of 1.35V which is actually really awesome. In fact my battery life has been increased by half an hour in spite of the fact that I went from 6gb of ram at 1333mhz with the same CAS latency. This ram pairs really well with a core i7 2720, and the intel hd graphics seems to run a bit better too as expected (although that's not as big of a factor as my laptop switches over to my radeon 6770m when gaming). Not that it's really that important but it also increased my WEI memory score to a 7.8, and if your laptop runs entirely off of the intel integrated graphics that score would increase as well.

Cons: The only problem I could see is if it dies anytime soon. If it does I'll certainly update my review, but I haven't had problems so far.

Overall Review: Why don't all laptops with at least an i7 2720 ship with ram like this? Seriously it's fast, low voltage, and it's under $50. Which is why I refused to pay an extra $150 to go from 6gb of ram to 8gb when ordering my laptop. I mean for me it was incredibly easy to install my new ram, I didn't even have to remove any screws (I have a custom hp dv6t quad edition laptop because my dad works at hp and I needed a laptop for college).