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Kelly L.

Kelly L.

Joined on 01/10/09

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 9
Most Favorable Review

Not really overclockable, despite plenty of headroom

ZOTAC ArcticStorm GeForce RTX 3090 24GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 SLI Support ATX Graphics Card ZT-A30900Q-30P
ZOTAC ArcticStorm GeForce RTX 3090 24GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 SLI Support ATX Graphics Card ZT-A30900Q-30P

Pros: I have an over-engineered water cooling system so I thought this would be a perfect replacement for my old water-cooled 1080 Ti. It performs as a standard non-overclocked 3090. You can overclock the memory +500MHz

Cons: The GPU isn't really overclockable -- Whether running the "FireStorm" software from Zotac or anything else with an auto-tuning capability, you'll be told after running that the stock settings are best. -- Evidently the card is power capped right at 300 watts. That's not even reference card voltage. I don't think there is any way around that. GPU-Z will confirm that the speed is limited by total power as the "PerfCap" reason. -- Just to be clear, this thing maxes out at 35C GPU/50C hotspot/84C memory when the room is at 26C(about 79F) thanks to my two radiators with six fans (that also cool the CPU). -- Also to be clear I have a 1200 W power supply only 50% utilized -- The fact that the memory gets so hot makes me think the thermal pads/paste used aren't all that great. I know GDDR5 memory will tend to run considerably hotter than a GPU in general, but I figured the waterblock ought to bring that down. Even at stock it's still at 81C. That nearly room-temp water ought to keep those temps down if there was good thermal contact of the waterblock with the memory chips. At some point I might see if I can fix that with some aftermarket pads/paste but not while it's under warranty. -- The fact that you can't get more than 300W out of this thing under any circumstance makes me think they probably went cheap on the power supply circuitry. I doubt this is fixable with a bios swap.

Overall Review: - Not for overclockers - Overengineered water-cooling system will be underutilized -- May have value in an SLI configuration, as you will come closer to utilizing your cooling capacity - May have value for underclocking if you have expensive electricity or you're pushing the limits of your power supply It really should be clearly stated that the total power that one can send to this card is less than the 3090 reference design.

Most Critical Review

Onboard Graphics Corrupted

BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX A2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX A2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Overclocked 940 Phenom II no problem to 3.5 GHz, would have tried more, but I really don't want to fry my new CPU. Stably ran SiSoft, FutureMark, videos, Civ4.

Cons: The onboard video would not run my Acer 21" monitor at 1920x1200, anything above 1440x900 was accompanied by an unstable picture and severe corruption along the bottom of the screen. Tried updating drivers, bios, tweaking settings, etc, but nothing helped. Had to RMA, so I lost my $40 combo discount, which sucks.

Overall Review: This board is not what I'd call full size ATX. I had a couple of motherboard mounts on my ATX chassis that the board didn't quite reach, so the board tends to bend a lot when you're plugging in connectors. Had to download a bios to recognize the new CPU, and of course change the memory timings to run CAS 5 1066. I could have lived without the onboard video, but the graphics card I bought (open box MSI HD 4870) was slightly artifacting in 2D (but strangely not 3D), which is probably why it was an open box item. NewEgg should have caught that problem before sending it back out to an unsuspecting customer.

Xmas present for myself

Samsung CHG90 Series LC49HG90DMNXZA 49" 3840 x 1080 1ms 144Hz 2x HDMI DisplayPort Mini-DisplayPort HDR AMD FreeSync USB Hub QLED Curved Gaming Monitor
Samsung CHG90 Series LC49HG90DMNXZA 49" 3840 x 1080 1ms 144Hz 2x HDMI DisplayPort Mini-DisplayPort HDR AMD FreeSync USB Hub QLED Curved Gaming Monitor

Pros: My first monitor was a TV issued by the Air Force so my eyes are damaged in the center of my field of vision. This thing is big and rocks. During gaming, I like using my peripheral vision to keep track of things on the side while having a wide field of view of the action in the middle.

Cons: It could/should be cheaper - I bought it on sale Black Friday. Not the best anti-glare setup

Overall Review: I think if your desk setup has you sitting pretty close to the monitor and you're myopic (nearsighted) like me, this is a good choice.

One bad apple...

G.SKILL TridentZ Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C16Q-32GTZB
G.SKILL TridentZ Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C16Q-32GTZB

Pros: 3 out of the 4 sticks worked.

Cons: - one didn't - hand's shredded from nearby Noctua fan

Overall Review: Do they not perform quality control on these? Like I said, I tried the bad stick in every slot, never worked, but the other 3 did. Machine would not POST with this stick in it.

Works as advertised

SPARKLE GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card SX560T1024D5MH
SPARKLE GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card SX560T1024D5MH

Pros: Upgraded from a HIS Radeon HD 4870. - run WoW on ultra settings w/ smooth fps - low idle temps - has CUDA (for number crunching) - reasonable price - lifetime warranty - stable (doesn't crash or overheat)

Cons: None so far.

Overall Review: Idle temperatures are much lower than my old card. About 6 degrees Celsius above ambient. I am looking forward to trying out the CUDA integration with Mathematica. - exceeds clock specs by about 1%. I am not going to overclock because it meets my needs 100% as is. - make sure you get rid of any old drivers before you upgrade.

Glad I bought it

CoolIT SYSTEMS ECO-R120 Advanced Liquid Cooling (ALC)
CoolIT SYSTEMS ECO-R120 Advanced Liquid Cooling (ALC)

Pros: Much cooler and quieter than my stock fan for an AMD Phenom II 945 BE. With the stock fan, I never could run my 4 cores at 100% for more than an hour without getting errors. Adding some Arctic Silver helped slightly, but buying this was the solution I was looking for. I opted to go with the pre-applied thermal compound, and it worked great. I'm now comfortably overclocked by 10% with no errors, and my temps are probably 25C cooler than I started.

Cons: I've had this probably 4 months now, and so far there are no signs of reliability problems. I really hope this lasts for a few years.

Overall Review: Install required me to take off the motherboard to position the back plate. If you've got an AMD chip, before you buy this, you should probably check to make sure you have a back plate on the back side of your motherboard, cause you'll need it. If you're crafty you could probably make one yourself.

12/10/2010