cover
Clinton M.

Clinton M.

Joined on 02/24/04

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 76
Most Favorable Review

Very Pleased!

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card 21197-00-40G
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card 21197-00-40G

Pros: Quiet. Powerful. Efficient. That sums it up in a nutshell. I replaced (2) 6970s with (1) 7970 and I am very happy with the upgrade. Do I get the same performance as (2) 6970s in crossfire? That depends on the game. By that I mean I play games that mostly do not scale that well with Crossfire (Skyrim, Rift, FO3 DLC) so going to a single, more powerful card has really improved my gaming experience a LOT. In those games where Crossfire works good already, I simply overclock the card through an AB Profile, and CPU through the BIOS, and I get 99% of the performance of Crossfire from a single card that uses far less power and runs far more quietly. MAX temps I ever saw was 78°C (20 runs of Heaven, using DX11, MAX settings at 2560x1600 res with max tessellation)

Cons: Eyefinity 2.0 should support Portrait, Landscape, Portrait mode. Crossfire is not as well supported in games as it should be. Keep in mind, however, this is a brand-new core architecture and that it "will" take a little time for driver devs to learn the nuances of the new core architecture to tweak performance.

Overall Review: 6970 Crossfire performance in Rift was less than satisfactory. I saw numbers dip as low as 18fps when participating in a Zone Event in Emerald Isle with 50-60 others. With the 7970 in the same situation, I see nothing below 32fps, while using higher in-game settings. I couldn't be more pleased.

Most Critical Review

Bought 2. Two died in <10 Days

WD Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
WD Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Price. Speed. (Before each of the two I ordered died)

Cons: First one died in 4 days. Replaced with second drive. It too died. Took 5 days for 2nd drive to die. 9 days, two dead drives

Overall Review: 1st worked fine for 4 days. Then on 5th day, Windows would not boot from it at all. BIOS cannot see it. Cannot see it in a USB enclosure or an eSATA enclosure. RMA'd to WD directly. Picking up RMA drive tonight that WD sent me. Replaced dead drive with second drive from same order. It too worked for 4-5 days. Then, I couldn't watch TV I had recorded to it on my HTPC. Mediaplayer would hang. I tried to copy files from it to my 400GB Seagate. Copy started fast, but would slow from 97MB/Sec to 2.1Mb/sec Took 5hrs to copy 22GB of Media Center recorded TV Shows. HDTune fails to finish at all. Displays a Read Error. Tried it in eSATA docking station. Tried it in USB3 docking station. Tried it on internal SATA connection. Fails on all 3.

This is one weird case

Cooler Master HAF XB EVO - High Air Flow Test Bench and LAN Box Desktop Computer Case with ATX Motherboard Support
Cooler Master HAF XB EVO - High Air Flow Test Bench and LAN Box Desktop Computer Case with ATX Motherboard Support

Pros: The only way you're going to get more airflow across your motherboard is if you hold it out the window of a speeding car. Lots of cable management options. Hot Swap Bays are nice. SSD Mounts are nice as well. Power/HDD LEDs are a muted red, which is nice compared to the retina-obliterating blue beam of death LEDs in most cases these days

Cons: Power Supply fitment is too close to the hot swap connectors. Very limited ventilation for lower half of case, right where your hard drives need it most.

Overall Review: I debated knocking off 2 eggs for the cons, but decided 1 was sufficient. I didn't ding it for style because I thought I'd grow to like it...now I'm not so sure...(that's just a subjective observation so I cannot take an egg for my own mistake)

Worth far more than I paid!

IMC IMC-black USB 2.0 Card Reader
IMC IMC-black USB 2.0 Card Reader

Pros: I received this as a free item in a combo deal and I have to say I love this thing! I use it to connect various SD, SDHC, and SDXC cards to my Raspberry Pi's powered hub and it works with anything I can throw at it.

Cons: ZERO

Overall Review: Can't say enough good things about this.

Suprising little proc

AMD A4-5300 - A-Series APU Trinity Dual-Core 3.4GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 65W AMD Radeon HD 7480D Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic - AD5300OKHJBOX
AMD A4-5300 - A-Series APU Trinity Dual-Core 3.4GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 65W AMD Radeon HD 7480D Desktop APU (CPU + GPU) with DirectX 11 Graphic - AD5300OKHJBOX

Pros: Good little processor. Seems quite capable for the budget build I purchased it for.

Cons: Could use better heat sink...

Overall Review: Purchased this and a FM2 board to build a system for a friend as wedding present. He seems very happy with it so far. He does a little light gaming on it and seems pleased

Good board for a basic build

ASUS F2A55-M LK PLUS FM2 AMD A55 (Hudson D2) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
ASUS F2A55-M LK PLUS FM2 AMD A55 (Hudson D2) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: It's a good board for a basic build. I purchased this with an A4-5300 to build a computer as a friend's wedding present and he seems very pleased with it.

Cons: Kinda bummed it doesn't have more options on it. I'd have thought that all new motherboards would come with USB 3.0 by now...Evidently not. :(

Overall Review: For its intended use, it's a good board. Not great. Good.