Pros: Low power consumption, low heat, low price, high speed! They seem to have improved the heatsink/fan unit from earlier X2's - much easier to install. Temps are the same as my old X2 4200, so I don't know why some people are saying it runs hot. Maybe bad airflow in case?

Cons: 512MB(x2) cache - but it doesn't make a huge difference compared to 1MB(x2) in the "real world"

Overall Review: My X2 4200 scored 1717 points in 3DMark 06 CPU bench. This 5600 CPU scores 2217. It's faster than my old CPU, uses less power and doesn't get any hotter - what's not to like? AMD offers fantastic value for money.

Pros: Cheap. 2 IDE ports.

Cons: See below.

Overall Review: I've had to revise my score for this board. Every now and again it would corrupt the boot sector of my hard drive and I would have to perform a Windows repair. I know the drive is fine. Have now swapped to a more expensive Gigabyte board and everything seems fine. I don't think this Biostar board supports IDE drives very well.

Pros: Apps load faster, boot times improved slightly. Easy install.

Cons: Software is a little basic, but I suppose it does all it needs to.

Overall Review: Good upgrade to a system I didn't want to mess around with too much.

Pros: Fast scanning. Easy setup. Good quality for most things.

Cons: Extremely noisy. Not built very well. Very poor at scanning faint documents.

Overall Review: We usually use Epson GT-S50's for our DMS and really hammer them hard. I thought I would try this Brother scanner for a change as it seemed quite similar on paper. So far it's a mixed bag. It scans a little quicker than the Epson and the quality for most things seems very slightly better...but that could just be down to software settings. However it has 2 big problems. It is absurdly noisy and unpleasant sounding - like a piece of farm equipment operating on my desk. It's driving everybody in the office nuts. This isn't a faulty one either - they just sound that way apparently. Secondly, this scanner is very poor at scanning old/faint documents - it just skips half of them because it thinks they're blank pages. I've tried tweaking the software but it makes no difference. The Epson scanners handle even the faintest old docs just fine, out of the box - never skipped a single one. You can also tell the difference in build quality between the 2 scanners with the Brother being literally half the weight of the Epson. The Epson feels solid and reliable, the Brother feels cheap and fragile. For a general document scanner this ADS-2000 is fine. However, for a heavy use application it's just too noisy and is too fussy about the material it's scanning. It also feels like it won't last, but only time will tell on that.

Pros: Can barely hear it. Looks nice.

Cons: I'm also experiencing an annoying noise - a very quiet thup-thup-thup-thup. Fortunately, it's a media PC and is inside a cabinet so you can't hear it.....or I might have deducted more than 1 egg.

Overall Review: Bought this to replace the stock fan that came with the case. That fan sounded like an angry Dirt Devil, so in comparison the Vortex is deathly silent. Hoping the annoying noise doesn't get any worse. I would advise to keep clear of this model until Cougar have sorted this issue out. Sounds like they're aware of the problem.

Pros: This device is astonishing. It made images (some of them moving) appear on my screen!

Cons: It failed to trigger world peace when I plugged it in. Maybe if I try a different HDMI port.....

Overall Review: Well made, cheap, works. 5 eggs from me.