Joined on 12/29/10
Nice big case
Pros: Huge case. I mean really big... I have the corsair C70 vengeance and this absolutely dwarfs it. Lots of room inside. Very modular and tool less take down makes for easy installation. Lots of room for air flow, especially with the HD cages removed. Lots of holes drilled in ever section for easy cable management. Used 140MM Corsair fans all the way around and 0 issues on install.
Cons: As the case reaches the bottom there is sort of a reverse incline that makes a V and the base. Sometimes its difficult to get a screwdriver in there to get anything done. Expansion bay covers are fastened down WAY to tight. I thought I was breaking something or miss threading the screws trying to take them off. No eggs deducted for me being a softie with the screws.
Overall Review: Biostar TZ77XE4 I5 Intel 3570K 16 GB DDR3 1600 Asus 970 GTX Turbo X2
Trash
Pros: -worked for a few months
Cons: It worked for the first 4 months then broke. Gigabyte won’t stand behind their product and replace it despite being less than 6 months old. Garbage company making garbage products. Buy literally anything else because anything else is better than nothing at all and probably cheaper too.
Overall Review: Do not purchase.
DOA
Pros: Bought this guy from a local computer shop. Looks like the picture on the box I guess?
Cons: First issue- Only reads 1 stick of RAM in the slot furthest away from the CPU. If I plug in more than one it just restart loops. I've manually changed the voltage, speed, timing, and slot to no avail. I think the RAM slots are not reading. Second issue- I have to clear the CMOS everytime it powers down or restarts or it goes into a restart loop. I have updated bios and cleared it and ran the default bios. Fail fail fail.
Overall Review: I doubt this is the rule and more of a unfortunate isolated incident where I end up with a defunct board.
Push - Pull
Pros: Works as advertised. Cools decently enough for a moderate overclock. Has mounts/holes for a push - pull set up. Mounting hardware for pretty much any CPU you wanna use with spare parts to boot. I think its a good lookin cooler. Runs fairly quiet compared to other all-in-one coolers.
Cons: CPU installation was more painful than putting together Ikea furniture. Mounting on to the case was even more difficult. The equipped thermal paste was less than satisfactory. The equipped fan was noisy and didn't push air well. Corsair log in the center didn't line up quite right and slants in one direction which is annoying to me, maybe its my OCD acting up, I would have fixed it but just getting the hardware to work together was a serious undertaking so I decided to skip it and attempt to not look directly at it.
Overall Review: I plan on paints some pieces to make it look good with my case. We shall see how it goes.
GTX 970X2 in SLI
Pros: Easy install with good easy to use software included. Single 8Pin power cable keeps your close clutter free Low power draw, no 900W+ needed depending Running 2 in SLI has solid performance per dollar. Software makes it very easy to overclock. Overclocked and tweaked has it preforming better than 97% according to 3DMark and 88% at GPU.Userbenchmark. Blower type fans have cutouts on top to draw air from both sides of the card in case you plan on running in tandem. Some draw backs (See Cons)
Cons: Blower style fans on maxed settings sound like a heard of vacuum cleaners getting tortured to death in your case. Windows 10 didn't have adequate updates to support the 970GTX in SLI at first so had to run one as a physics card until recently but all good now. Demote 1 egg for the wind turbulence.
Overall Review: Corsair 780T I5 Intel 3570K Biostar TZ77XE4 16GB DDR3 1600 970 GTX X2(SLI)
Great Card
Pros: Great Card- Runs cool Runs quiet even with fans on high setting Runs the games I play (GW2, Borderlands 2, Witcher, Farcry 3) on max setting with no issues or lag Great software Great customer support Good product
Cons: Card is very heavy and has no backplate. I feel like its pulling on the PCIE socket. I am not expert though just a worry of mine.
Overall Review: No eggs lost due to no backplate because I am not sure its actually having a negative impact.