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Oscar P.

Oscar P.

Joined on 07/13/01

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 8
Most Favorable Review

Great Purchase

Cooler Master Seidon 240M - All-In-One CPU Liquid Water Cooling System with 240mm Radiator and 2 Fans
Cooler Master Seidon 240M - All-In-One CPU Liquid Water Cooling System with 240mm Radiator and 2 Fans

Pros: Keeps my AMD FX-8350 @4.5Ghz processor below 25ºC during idle and below 50ºC during gaming. I connected both Seidon FANs to the CPU FAN header on my GA-990FXA mobo and the Seidon Water Pump to SYSFAN1 header. On the BIOS, they are both set for manual fan control with 0.75/ºC for the CPU FAN and 2.5/ºC for the SYSFAN1 (water pump).

Cons: Fans are a bit noisy at 1500RPM

Overall Review: Check if your Case has enough room for the radiator before buying this water cooler. I didn't look closer to realize that my Cougar Evolution case didn't have enough room for both the radiator and fans. I ended up installing the fans on the top of the case and modding the case top cover. NewEgg free shipping is a hit or miss. I ordered a mobo proc and heatsink with free shipping the day before I ordered this water cooler and they arrived on second business day with UPS. This cooler on the other hand was shipped from the same warehouse but via FedEx and arrived a week later.

Most Critical Review

Updating my 6/26/2013 review

SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card 100351VXSR
SAPPHIRE Vapor-X Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card 100351VXSR

Pros: Fast when it is not crashing my system.

Cons: My problems started around 2 months ago while playing F1 2012 at stock speed (1050 GPU/1500 Memory), Now, I cannot play Battlefield 4 for more than 1 hour without getting the infamous Grey/Black screen crash and the sound looping. I've tried everything. Several AMD drivers versions and I even bought a 1200W Gold Power Supply to rule out my old 850W Bronze power supply. The only thing that seems to help is to reduce the video card memory frequency from 1500 to 1450. So, it appears the memory on this video card has developed problems.

Overall Review: I didn't get the extended warranty so, I'm going to have to RMA this card directly to Sapphire. Problem is that I don't have a replacement card for the weeks it is going to take the RMA to get processed.

11/25/2013

Died after 5 weeks

MSI R9 290X LIGHTNING 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail
MSI R9 290X LIGHTNING 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail

Pros: Good performance while it worked

Cons: Card only lasted 5 weeks. I'm doing the RMA right now.

Overall Review: I'll update this review after the RMA process.

Nice

HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 MicroServer Server System Intel Pentium G2020T 2.5GHz 2C/2T 2GB DDR3 No Hard Drive 712318-001
HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 MicroServer Server System Intel Pentium G2020T 2.5GHz 2C/2T 2GB DDR3 No Hard Drive 712318-001

Pros: Sleek design, compact and really quiet even when using AHCI (Thanks to the latest ROM). Comes with Intelligent Provisioning for easy configuration, deployment and maintenance and iLO4 Management Processor that can be accessed from a dedicated NIC port or by sharing the server's NIC#1.

Cons: The Embedded B120i controller is a half baked Smart Array controller.

Overall Review: You don't need to buy HP Smart Memory or HP Hard Drives. Mine is running fine with 16Gb Kingston's ECC (p/n KTH-PL316E/8G) and 4 Western Digital Red NAS hard drives.

Beautiful Full Tower Case

Fractal Design Define XL R2 Black Silent EATX Full Tower Computer Case
Fractal Design Define XL R2 Black Silent EATX Full Tower Computer Case

Pros: Best case I've bought so far. This beauty is huge and heavy. Comes with 3 x 140mm fans, I had no problems installing my Seidon 240M Water Cooler on it and it has plenty of room for an even larger radiator.

Cons: Two issues but, not enough to remove 1 egg. - Audio ports on top panel are either mislabeled or were wired incorrectly because, my Headset wasn't working until I decided to plug the Headphone jack to the MIC port and the MIC to the Headphone port. - I wish the Fan Control switch was easier to access. It is hidden behind the case door. How about a knob to control fan speed on the front panel instead of a switch for the next R3?

Gigabyte for the win

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: This is my second GA-990FXA-UD3. I bought the first 18 months ago, it was a Rev 1.1 board and it is now on my kid's PC with my old FX-8120. This new one is a Rev 3.0 and it has a FX-8350 running stable at 4.5Ghz with a Seidon 240M water cooler and 16Gb RipJaws DDR3 (2x8Gb) at 1866 using XMP profile 1. I know I could push the processor higher, if I increase the voltage but, I would rather sacrifice some performance and have a quiet system in my home office.

Cons: None so far.