Pros: -Very quiet -Pretty good cooling (haven't really benchmarked it yet but I've yet to see it go over 44c on stock speeds of an AMD 5600K) -Not very tall if you don't use a fan on the top -Mounting kits are divided up in little bags with labels AMD set, Intel set, Accessories rather than jumbled all into one bag. -Thermal paste comes in a tube rather than preapplied, so you can use your own if you don't want to use theirs. -Tall RAM heatsinks are fine if you don't use the bottom fan. -Cools components around socket (assuming your CPU is staying relatively cool) -Great for people who want to line it up with an opening on the side of their case -Splitter for both fans so you can control them both with the CPU connector on the motherboard. Provides a nice little shrouded extension to keep it neat too. -Available in multiple colors, great for those of us concerned about aesthetics.

Cons: -Bottom fan cannot be centered because the heatpipes get in the way, unless you use a smaller fan. Not really a big deal considering the fan is already wider than the heatsink and sufficiently covers the surface anyways. -Tall if you use the top fan, but even then it's probably about the same height as most horizontal coolers like the 212+ -Uses the stock AMD backplate, so you need to remove your motherboard if you don't the cutout in your case -You probably want to remove the motherboard even if you have a cutout in your case as it's rather difficult to reach the mounting screws even with the L-shaped tool they give you for it. -IT RATTLED FOR ME WHEN USING THE RUBBER STRIPS. *See other thoguhts -Only comes with a single pair of rubber strips, so you can only use them on one of the two fans. -The metal fan clips don't just slide into the screw holes on the fans. You need to put little rubber attachments on them first. It made attaching the clips kind of annoying, but on the upside this means the clips don't fall off the fans very easily which makes installing them to the heatsink easier.

Overall Review: All the reviews I've seen of this product show them installing the fans pointing downwards and pushing the air onto the motherboard. Makes sense if the CPU stays cool, the cool air at the bottom will cool your RAM and area around the motherboard while taking in cool air from any mesh on the side of your case. However, the installation guide very clearly tells you to orient the fans so air is being pushed through from the motherboards side. I chose this method as I figured that it wont really make much difference in cooling performance, there's no risk in the CPU getting warm and heating the components with warm air and the top of the cooler aligned nicely with my side duct, making ideal for exhausting warm air. *When using the rubber/silicon strips, which I assume are for noise dampening, the fan would rattle. If I pushed gently on the fan it would get louder, so I can only assume that they were somehow actually pushing the fan against the heatsink. The only thing I can figure is that they caused the fan to curve slightly inwards at the center. Removing them got rid of the rattle instantly. Not a really big deal because the fans are already pretty darn quiet at 800 RPM.

Pros: - Butter smooth 144hz on an ultrawide! - 2560x1080 requires a less expensive video card to hit your 144fps target than it would on a 2K or 4K display. - Viewing angles are surprisingly good for a VA panel. It's very obvious there's a sweet spot in the center but it certainly could be way worse. - It's way less ugly than the Predator monitors, in my opinion. - Healthy amount of options in OSD menu, including to the ability to change the center LED to different colors and pulsing/breathing/on/off/etc. - Movies in their original formatting/aspect ratio look awesome on ultrawide displays.

Cons: - GHOSTING, GHOSTING, GHOSTING. I debated taking off more eggs for this. Hardcore FPS gamers beware, this monitor is a blurry mess. I haven't owned the Z35 or anything so I can't make a direct comparison to that, but I have owned multiple 144hz gaming TN panels before this one. This was a huge downgrade in the amount of blur and ghosting. How noticeable depends on the game. Doom for example, has pretty complex screens, plenty of motion blur and a color palette that blends together. It's not too bad there. Other games like TF2 with simple, hard geometry and plenty of contrasting colors - it's impossible to miss immediately. It's a bit painful. - I don't know if this issue is related to Displayport, video card or monitor issue, but powering off the monitor causes Windows to behave as if the monitor is completely disconnected. Once you power it back on, you can see all your windows on other monitors have been squashed onto it as if this (main) display had been disconnected. This wasn't happening before, but I also wasn't using displayport before. I'll do more experimenting with power saving options and cables to see if I can safely say this is a flaw with the monitor. If you're not or never will be using a multi-monitor setup, this isn't an issue. - 21:9 support in games is limited. Unreal Engine 3 games are a simple console command away from it working correctly if it's not supported out-of-the-box. Some people want stuff to work perfectly with minimal effort, this monitor probably isn't for them. - Pixel density isn't as great as other monitors out there, obviously. I care a lot more about refresh rate and motion blur personally, but I can easily understand the love for high PPI displays when I use them.

Overall Review: Overall I'm happy with the monitor. It looks brilliant besides the ghosting and blur. I will probably replace this monitor once 144hz ultrawide monitors mature to the point where they're nearly blur free like my previous TN monitors.

Pros: -Like everyone has been saying, it's dead silent. Fans are completely off when the card is below 67c. Playing less intensive games like TF2, the fans only occasionally turn on so I'm sure for even older games this card will remain passive even during gaming. That's just plain awesome from a card of this performance. -Good price for great performance, this is probably the new 8800GT that Nvidia has been shooting for. -The backplate is very good at keeping the card rigid. -I haven't experienced any of the coil whine some people are talking about, even when the card is stressed. It's a nice relief from my previous card. -The card comes with both a "Gaming" and "Silent" overclock and underclock presets in GPU Tweak. I can't really comment on this cards overclocking ability but I pushed it past the "Gaming" preset quite easily.

Cons: -There's a power LED next to the 8pin power connector. It's rather bright and some people might find it annoying at night in an otherwise dark room. Not worth subtracting an egg and probably not an issue for those who don't have windows on their case. -If flashy IS what you're looking for, the STRIX logo on the side of the card does NOT light up like the rivaling MSI Gaming 970. This isn't a con in my opinion but worth mentioning since some people might be disappointed. -It's a somewhat large card both in width and length. It comes almost as close as my Prolimatech Megahalems to touching my case door. Not a problem for me and most people but something to consider if you're planning on putting this in a micro or ITX build. -GPU Tweak isn't very good compared to the cards rivals, MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision. If you're just looking to set the clock frequencies, there's nothing really wrong with GPU Tweak. However, if you use the program more in-depth (e.g. tweaking the monitor graphs) you'll quickly realize it's not quite as mature as the other two. Of course there's nothing keeping you from using the other ones so there's no need to deduct an egg. It'll be a sad day if any of the brands decide to start limiting their software to only their line of cards.

Overall Review: If you're struggling to choose between the MSI Gaming card and this one like I was, just pick whatever your gut tells you. They're both similar and fantastic cards. They're both quiet and run fanless when under low load. They both overclock great. You can't really go wrong. While nearly identical, the STRIX 980 heatsink appears to be a tad larger than the STRIX heatsink on this card. I wish ASUS would have just given this card the same heatsink. I would assume it would help the card need the fans even less often as well as keep the card dead silent under heavy overclocking. Don't get me wrong though, the cooler on this thing is still fantastic and more than enough and if you're interested in extreme overclocks you're probably not planning to keep this thing on air anyways.

Pros: Reaches advertised speeds just fine with AHCI and SATA6GB/s. I get to my Win8 logon screen before my motherboard fully initializes my USB and turns on my keyboard... This is also probably one of the few times I've really liked software that came with hardware. Samsung Magician is genuinely useful and easy for a handful of things.

Cons: Blue screened on me once. Checked for a firmware update in the Magician software and sure enough there was one.

Overall Review: This has to me addicted to drive speed now. I got to play with an Intel NUC with the SSD over PCIE. Kind of want to upgrade to that but it's almost complete overkill.

Pros: -Cable management for cheap -Decent room (but still a little tight) on the side for unused cables with non-modular power supplies -Black interior -The tooless mounting is one of the better designs I've seen -Can easily fit the 120mm or 240mm radiator on top for watercooling -Rubber feet to reduce vibration to desk and any sliding around -Dust filter for both the honeycomb intake at the front and the PSU intake underneath (PSU filter can easily be removed without opening the case) -USB 3.0 on the front. The cable reached the motherboard no problem -White power/reset buttons go nicely with a white and black theme -Four 2.5 HDD slot; nice if you want to do a SSD RAID -Fairly wide, so should fit most aftermarket CPU coolers -The lack of a tall HDD bay means you could fit pretty much any GPU in there -Motherboard risers come pre-installed -Fans are pretty quiet -Side slots for fans will align nicely with a GPU or CPU if wish you push air onto them. -Can mount an additional 120mm fan to the front if you desire

Cons: -The HDD cage is far less open on the right than the left. This doesn't make much sense to me and it makes it harder to push air over the hard drives if you mount a fan fan there* -Cable holes aren't rubberized, but they're not sharp so it's not a big deal. -There is some spacing between the motherboard and the top of the case in the event that you put a radiator there, but I would still prefer another half an inch or so. -While the case feet are nice, they are very short. This means no sitting the case on anything except hard surfaces if you want the power supply to get any breathing. If you have to put the case on carpet, I would mount the PSU upside down and use air from inside the case. -USB3.0 connector seemed a little loose when plugging it into the motherboard. Probably not Corsairs fault as I'm sure that's a USB standard. -Did not have a riser or spot for the bottom right screw of my microATX motherboard. Not that big of a deal but sort of weird how they missed that considering how much attention was given to the motherboard mounting.

Overall Review: *I moved the 120mm in front down to the HDD bay. It works fine but like I said, you need to turn up the fan a bit of you want any air getting pushed through there. Ideally you would add an additional fan yourself so you can keep your case pressure positive AND your hard drives cool. I will be doing this soon.

Pros: -Great price/performance ratio considering the onboard graphics don't entirely suck. -Lets you get GPU video acceleration without buying a discrete video card, reducing the amount of power and noise the system makes. -Native USB3.0 This is way better for compatibility with USB3.0 and legacy USB devices than the drivers you need to download for Intel boards.

Cons: Stock heatsink isn't very good, but it's still better than the dinky thing Intel gives with their Ivy Bridge processors.

Overall Review: Is Intel still top dog when it comes to performance? Yeah. So if you game and want the highest possible framerate, ridiculous memory speeds and for considerably more money, go to them. For everything else, I prefer AMD.