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Kevin N.

Kevin N.

Joined on 05/20/09

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 16
Most Favorable Review

Lian Li Lancool PC-K57W

LIAN LI Lancool First Knight Series PC-K57W Black SECC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
LIAN LI Lancool First Knight Series PC-K57W Black SECC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Picked this case up for $55 shipped a few months back. It's a good case for the money. Cable management is good when combined with a modular power supply. Construction is solid for a case that's pop-riveted together. 3 months of use and no rattles yet.

Cons: You will experience some installation difficulties when using the Corsair Hydro series liquid cooling. The 120mm radiator will make contact with one of the rivets on the case. The power/reset buttons can be difficult to locate due to their position, but easily fixed with a bit of white model paint applied to the recessed markers on the button faces.

Overall Review: The power/HD activity LED's colors can bleed into each other creating an odd looking purple color, but easily fixed by glueing a small "divider" between the LED's. (I used a an old drive jumper for mine) Overall a very solid case. I'm just annoyed at times by the little things. (I'm a bit OCD'd)

Most Critical Review

Rosewill RX-358 V2

Rosewill RX-358 V2 BLK - Black, 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA External Enclosure with Internal 80 mm Fan
Rosewill RX-358 V2 BLK - Black, 3.5" SATA to USB & eSATA External Enclosure with Internal 80 mm Fan

Pros: Design is solid. It makes a really good paperweight. At least the USB interface works.

Cons: Where do I start? The eSata interface doesn't work. Period. Tried different cables and system ports. Nada. By way of comparison, my other eSata drive (NOT a Rosewill) works flawlessly. Front LED's are REALLY bright. Yup. 2 Eggs, one for keeping papers from blowing off my desk and 1 egg for the USB interface....

Overall Review: Well.................It WAS under $20 with promo code. As the old addage goes "you get what you pay for...

Arctic Accelero Cooler

ARCTIC Accelero TT II VGA Cooler - nVidia & AMD, Dual Quiet 92mm PWM Fans, SLI/CrossFire
ARCTIC Accelero TT II VGA Cooler - nVidia & AMD, Dual Quiet 92mm PWM Fans, SLI/CrossFire

Pros: Does a good job at cooling for the little amount of money spent. Took some time to assemble, as I used heatsinks everywhere that they were needed. Quiet when running, even when plugged directly into a 12v feed.

Cons: Near useless instructions, which has already been said. I used Arctic Silver 2-part thermal adhesive rather than taking a chance on the OEM "glue". I suggest cleaning both the chips as well as the heatsinks with a high quality electronics cleaner prior to heatsink installation.

Overall Review: This is installed on an XFX Radeon HD 6850 DD. It is overclocked at 850MHz, and shows a 3*C drop in temps at idle and roughly 15*C under heavy load. The dual fans power wire is attached to the 12v dongle supplied with the cooler. It's a shame it won't connect directly to the video card's fan power plug. Too bad the heatsinks weren't made out of copper instead of aluminum, but then again this cooler would be a lot higher priced.

XFX Radeon HD 6850

XFX Double D Radeon HD 6850 1GB DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card HD-685X-ZDFC
XFX Double D Radeon HD 6850 1GB DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card HD-685X-ZDFC

Pros: A close friend purchased 2 of these cards for me and I am truly impressed. I set them up in a CrossfireX configuration and am simply amazed at the performance boost over my original HIS IceQ Turbo 6790. ZERO lag on ANY game, including Skyrim with many graphics mods as well as an insanely modded Oblivion GOTY. Photoshop CS6? Ditto! Fan noise is negligible for the most part. This set of cards should "future proof" my system for at least year or two. Also, not that it really matters, but the WEI Gaming Graphic's score is 7.8.

Cons: These cards DO NOT come with a CrossfireX bridge, so if you are ordering two of them, be sure that you have a bridge available prior to installation. Usually the are supplied with the mainboard, but can be purchased separately from various sources including online vendors for around $8~$10 USD. Also, you might need to completely uninstall then reinstall the ATI Catalyst Control Center before your Crossfire configuration is correctly recognized by the CCC application. These cards easily OC to 800MHz GPU and 1100MHz memory, adding even more performance. If you OC, just be sure you have good ventilation inside your case. Also, due to the size of the cards I lost use of my only PCI slot and subsequently my PCI sound card and am using the onboard Realtek audio.

Overall Review: My current system hardware; Asus Sabertooth 990FX mainboard AMD FX6200 6-core processor clocked at 4.31GHz stable 16GB gSkill RipJaws DDR3-1600 memory Crucial M4 128GB SSD Corsair HX 750W power supply ViewSonic VA2702w 27" LCD running 1920 x 1080 native (DVI)

10/10/2012

G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM

Pros: Another set of excellent memory sticks from G.Skill! Upon installation I ran a full memtest memory check with zero defects found. I purchased 2x8GB sets for a total of 16GB. These are installed on an Asus Sabertooth 990FX mainboard, AMD FX6200 processor and a Crucial M4 128GB SSD. ZERO problems found and were immediately and correctly identified in the BIOS. (v.1102) The height of the heatsinks are fine for all but the biggest of CPU coolers. The heatsinks are of good quality with no spaces seen between the heatsink surface and memory chips.

Cons: None as of this review. This is the 3rd set of G.Skill memory modules I have purchased within the last 12 months.

Overall Review: **This is directed at NewEgg!!** It seems that EVERY item I have purchased within the last year either goes on sale a few days after purchasing or has a discount "promo" code for 10~15 percent off of THE EXACT SAME ITEM I just bought. Every item. Every time. Overall good service and good products, but this targeted advertising of items I already purchased makes me question whether or not I should get what I need here or somewhere else that won't discount everything that I have already purchased "after the fact".

Corsair HX750

CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750 W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready
CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750 W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready

Pros: I purchased this power supply as a replacement upgrade from my Corsair HX650 I bought 3 months ago. Like the 650, this unit is modular and comes with plenty of additional cables. It is physically bigger that the 650, but not by much. The fan is silent except when under a really heavy load, but even then it's barely noticable. This is the 7th Corsair power supply I have purchased in the last year for various builds and every single one of them have performed flawlessly. The cables have plenty of length for mid and full tower applications, but would be just a bit too long for small, compact towers/desktops, requiring a little more creativity when concealing the excess wiring. The internal components are fairly high quality and well assembled and arranged in a fashion that allows for good airflow through the internal components.

Cons: Like I mentioned above, the cables are just a bit too long for smaller, more compact cases, but then again I am using a Lian Li Lancool mid-tower, so it's not an issue.

Overall Review: Current build; Sabertooth 990FX mainboard, AMD FX-6200 six core processor clocked at 4.31GHz, HIS Radeon HD 6790 iceQ turbo video, 16GB gSkill Ripjaws DDR3-1333 memory, Crucial M4 128GB SSD (for programs), Western Digital 750GB Black Edition hard drive (for media), Creative Labs X-Fi Fatal1ty audio, Corsair H60 liquid cooler, LG DVD/RW drive and 6 assorted case fans.