Joined on 11/20/03
Good Performance, Cheap Feel
Pros: - Runs games great even with basic AA (45fps w AA and medium/high settings in Meridian during prime time) - Great stats and solid performance - Love that you can run fans full speed whenever you please and the fans seem to scale pretty well automatically - Great shipping from Newegg as always
Cons: - Keyboard is not sturdy at all and you can feel it. My comma key was broken upon shipping and the P key is a little sketchy already. - Turbo button didn't appear to have much performance effect on Rift - Gets pretty hot (which is expected), do NOT rest it on your lap (unless you want to burn your buys) - The area under the screen (where the Turbo, Fan, Wireless On/Off, etc..) scratches easily
Overall Review: Very happy with the purchase as I travel weekly for work and need something to do in remote locations. The Pros faaaaaarrrr outweigh the cons (the only one that matters is the cheapness of the keyboard). It is a solid performing laptop that I would purchase again if given the choice to buy or get another similarly priced model on.
Issues
Pros: None
Cons: Simply doesn't work.
Overall Review: Card runs fine when idle. However, any time I try to run a game, the screen goes black and a reboot is needed. Occassionally, the computer needs unplugged before it will boot again. Computer meets all minimum requirements, but I believe it may be a compatability issue with the motherboard or power supply or a defective card. It's been a very frustrating couple of days. My 9800Pro runs perfectly fine when I put it back in. Also, UPS shipping is a pain in the rear. Took 7 days because of the holiday. The package transferred to 3 different warehouses, all the same distance from here. I'll always use FedEx from now on. 3.0 P4 w/ HT Intel 865GBF Mobo 1.0 Kingston HyperX 400w VPower PSU Audigy 2 ZS
Pros: - Boot time is noticeably faster than normal for Windows7 64-bit. - Would be more useful if using intensive programs or if you have significant programs loading on startup.
Cons: - Performance increase in boot was noticeable, but in other applications the increase was not as apparent. - Games didn't load much faster than previously on my system (as an example, in BF3 loading in before most people off of a 7200RPM HDD), it's a little faster, but not spectacular.
Overall Review: - O/S and game loaded directly onto the SSD - Z68 board, but not using caching since OS is on the SSD - O/S & programs were all on a non-RAID 1TB 7200RPM HDD previously - I keep my O/S clean on its installs and programs on start up so the difference wasn't as noticeable once I was past the Windows loading screen i5 2500k 2x4GB G. Skill DDR3 1866 128GB Corsair M4 SSD + 3x1TB HDD MSI Twin Frozr II 1GB GTX560 Ti ASUS z68 Mobo
Meh...
Pros: With EUFI BIOS and the SSD, the start up to Windows is pretty quick. However, it's nothing spectacular coming from a 7200RPM 1TB HDD since I always kept my programs on start up to a minimum. To be honest, for someone like me it wasn't quite worth the money as my primary uses are internet, movies and gaming. Games are saved on the SSD and have no noticeable loading difference in games or their loading times.
Cons: To be honest, for someone like me it wasn't quite worth the money as my primary uses are internet, movies and gaming. Games are saved on the SSD and have no noticeable loading difference in games or their loading times over my Western Digital 1TB 7200RPM HDD. I could see it being more useful for someone who has quite a bit of "crud" (for lack of a better word) starting up with their PC (fixable through msconfig) or running intensive programs like video editing/animation/3D rendering/CAD.
Overall Review: i5 2500k 8GB DDR3 1800 Twin Frozr II GTX 560 Ti
2-for-2
Pros: Works as expected. Performance is fine, no noticeable issues with large file copying or large chunks being moved. Bought 2 for RAID mirroring hook up and both function and had no issues, no DOAs is always a good thing.
Cons: None.
Overall Review: I wish I could right some big fancy review, but simply put, it's a HDD that's functional, performs as you'd expect an SATA 7200RPM drive to and I have not had any problems in the 4 months I have had the drives.
Great Buy
Pros: - No noticeable ghosting - Great colors - No issues with fuzziness - No dead pixels - Tilt adjustment on stand - Good enough viewing angles (Are you really going to look at your monitor from that far to one side?)
Cons: - Fingerprint Magnet - No height/side-to-side adjustment on stand
Overall Review: I purchased this monitor from a brick and mortar so I could inspect it prior to taking it home and found no dead pixels. Used for playing Aion & BF2 @ 1920x1080 and have no noticeable ghosting and text in Windows or game is not fuzzy at the native resolution. The colors look considerably better than my older LCDs and the brightness around 50 and contrast around 73. I haven't touched any other settings. I would recommend or purchase this monitor again. Newegg will have the best price.