Joined on 11/24/09
Hands down , the best.
Pros: This thing is awesome. Not many products I can say that about 100%. 1) I replaced the Corsair H50 Water Cooling system with this. (the H50 Pump was making noise, was annoying). -- Wasn't affecting performance though.. 2) This is outperforming (at current clock speeds anyway) the H50.. which I didn't think would happen. 3) Just for an example: i5-750, OC'ed just slightly over 3Ghz (mild OC for now),.. it runs, AT Load, in the 30's and 40's, celsius. I wasn't expecting such efficient cooling with Prime95 torture. Easily as efficient as the H50, if not more. 4) This thing is QUIET. You get top cooling performance ON AIR, and quiet? Whats the catch? (price maybe) -- but it is true, it is whisper silent.. 5) Installation -- Easy, trust me. Some of these monster HS's are incredibly difficult, this thing is designed so well. Has all the parts you need and more, and GOOD instructions if you need them.
Cons: *- If I had to list anything it would be the price, but , honestly, it is (at the moment) , very new to the market.. and is a top tier cooler, so the 80$ price tag is where it should be for now. It is worth the cash if you need the best air cooling that can be had, and you also want silence.
Overall Review: It comes with everything so neatly packed, pack for Intel chipsets, Pack for AMD chipsets,.. and pack of 'common parts'. Comes with its own Thermal compound that is a very good compound regardless of the heatsink/fan(s). Comes with a screw driver.. you don't even need to break out a tool to do this. The only thing I recommend for anyone before purchasing is to take the measurements from the specifications .. and DO measure in your board and case to make sure you have room. Particular problem area is RAM. If you have RAM with tall heatsink/spreaders you might have to pass , or make some modifications. Just do the measurements and you can figure it out pretty quickly. I see no one else has reviewed this on newegg, so I have to rate it a MUST BUY if you are on the fence and know it will fit. Nothing is going to beat this other than a considerable *custom* water cooling setup (IE Big rad, big pump, lots of plumbing and so on).
First DOA from Newegg.
Pros: Umm.. I have another Caviar Black that has been running for 5 years now... So good brand? *I'll be sure to post a follow up review on the RMA'd new drive I receive.. to even out everything*
Cons: This is my first item from new egg that was broken "DOA" (dead on arrival) in over 10 years of ordering from them. It's a shame.. I really hate to have to pay for shipping and wait for another drive.. as this drive is for a more time sensitive matter (work). The client expected this to be done Tuesday.. Anyhow.. The issue is the drive has "S.M.A.R.T" errors which are recognized immediately when you boot.. BIOS halts, and asks you to go into BIOS. I have to turn OFF S.M.A.R.T for the computer to boot and I never put anything ON this drive.. I used an SSD for the OS, this drive was merely hooked up to later be used for Data/backup. Don't hate on Newegg or Western Digital too much from this review though. You will be hard pressed to find ANY Platter hard drive on new egg (or anywhere) that has immaculate reviews. EVERYONE has received some bad drives.. it's the nature of the game.
Overall Review: From my experience,.. hard drives are going to fail quickly (first day, first week.. or first few months) -- If they last a year or two.. they generally hang on for a while. I have a 10GB Fireball drive from 1996.. still runs like a champ. So hopefully the second drive will not be DOA. So, my first RMA experience with Newegg will happen today (and into the weekend) -- I hope it's an easy process. Would be fantastic if they would cross ship the same drive while I shipped this drive back.
The *Tock* of the Cycle is significant - Great CPU
Pros: Well others cover the general -- So I'll cover the absolute Technical Specs of this Chip! Launch: Q3, 2015 - i5-6600K (Unlocked) - 64 Bit Intel Smart Cache: 6MB DMI3 = 8 GT/s (8 Billion Data Transfer Operations per Second!) Extensions: SSE 4.1, 4.2, AVX 2.0 Size (Lithography) = 14 nanometers Thermal Specification PCG 2015D (130W) Core Number = 4 Thread Number = 4 Base Frequency = 3.5Ghz Default Turbo (non OC) Frequency = 3.9Ghz Thermal Design Power = 91Watts Cache: 6 MegaBytes Max RAM = 64GB RAM Compatiblity = DDR4/DDR3L Memory Channels = 2 Memory Bandwidth = 34.1 GB/s Graphics! (Impressive) Intel HD Graphics 530 Base Frequency = 350Mhz Max Frequency = 1.15Ghz Video Memory = 1.7GB Graphics Output Support = eDP, DP, HDMI, DVI 4K Support! Max Resolution = 4096x2304 *Native* DirectX 12 Open GL 4.4 Intel Quick Synch Video = Yes Intel InTru 3D Technology = Yes Intel Insider = Yes Intel Wireless Display = Yes Intel Clear Video HD = Yes Displays Supported Simultaneously (Just CPU) = 3 PCI Express = 3.0 PCI Express Configs = 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4 Max PCI Express Lanes = 16 Socket Supported: LGA1151 Intel Turbo Boost = 2.0 Intel Virtualization = Yes Intel TSX-NI = Yes Intel 3 = Yes Idle State = Yes Enhanced Speedstep = Yes Thermal Monitoring = Yes Intel Small Business Advantage = Yes Protection/Security-- OS Guard = Yes Execute Disable Bit = Yes This CPU has the ability to create Ciphers for encryption better than ever before. (Which does protect you). Has Native Hardware/CPU Support to protect Malicious software/programs in Memory Addresses. (It protects the Kernel) Intel Boot Guard = Yes Intel OS Guard = Yes Conflict Free = Yes VMCS Shdowing = Yes Identify Protection Tech = Yes Integrated Memory Controller = DDR4 has higher performance via prefetched algorithms, lower latency, and higher memory bandwidth than any prior generation. Gives higher transfer Speeds (And speeds in general) at lower power. The DDR3 to DDR4 step is a huge one with this Chipset Generation. It's a Great Chip, really the only issue right now is how New this generation is at the time of this review and how difficult it is to get these chips.. Quite limited at the moment. Prime Time to upgrade would be Q1 of 2016+ imho.
Cons: Wit this particular Chip -- The price is quite fair, and given it's performance vs say a 4 series i7 .. at i5 levels,.. it's hard to find Cons with this particular Skylake 6600K.
Overall Review: If you are waiting around for a different 6th Gen Chip.. And have a few months patience.. Wait for what you want. If you want the latest technology (Generation) in a new build, or are building machines like I am (Built 2 of this chip today) this is the way to go over going to a previous Generation or Two prior, imho.
Nice deal.
Pros: In this holiday bundle I received two GREAT games.. not silly games that you won't play. It came with Assassins Creed Black Flag, and Splinter Cell. Both are $60 games, that are popular franchises. I assume this is something you can purchase for the $109 pricetag. I received it as a free gift with the purchase of a graphics card. So a free bundle with $120 worth of GOOD games is super special, and unexpected.
Cons: Not really a con.. but: When dealing with Ubisoft online with the codes -- it's a little confusing. The code you get has to be input at X place, then you get emailed another code that is input at Y place.. etc. The code you receive is not just THE code used to activate the game. Not a big deal, just took me a minute online to figure out the order of things.
Overall Review: If free -- well, it's a great gift.. something you will use if you game. Now $109.99 for two games that are $59.99 each. I suppose you save $10 -- But if you search around you could probably find a better deal on the games than BUYING this for full price. I believe this is simply meant for gifts/promo's when buying other hardware and not so much to purchase individually. Thus the price point simply represents the value of the games you are receiving.
Nice Free Bonus
Pros: Great game -- and it was included free with purchase.
Cons: None
Overall Review: You can't beat "free"
It's the best, currently.
Pros: The name of this says it all. 1) It's the highest model, best, Graphics card on the market. 2) This model has been much improved upon by ASUS, better cooling,.. higher clock speeds than the Regular Nvidia GTX 780 offerings. 3) OVER-engineered by ASUS. They did one heck of a job on redesigning this Card so quickly. 4) It will run EVERYTHING at insane FPS. 5) It futureproofs your rig for gaming. If you don't game,.. there are few reasons to buy a card this expensive and of this caliber. 6) It has a 384Bit BUS/bandwidth. This is a big difference over the GTX 770, etc. This helps put the card into a class of it's own even when compared to the 770. The Card did take a big price cut from it's original price point when it released.. currently $539 -- It was considerably more than that. The 780 series is a much more powerful card than the 770. Don't be fooled into thinking that since the numbers of the 770 and 780 are so close that there is little difference in them. You are getting quite a bit more with the 780 than the 770. (That said, the 770 is definitely NOT a bad card.. it's just a mid grade card, vs the 780 is High end, at this point in time.)
Cons: 1) Expensive. The best graphics card on the market at any given time is going to be expensive.. likely the most expensive piece of your entire system. Think about what your needs and uses of the computer are. Don't just buy to have it if you don't use applications/games that will make use of it's power. Other than the expense.. there are no cons. Nvidia , imo, is more reliable, has better drivers, and has software designed to work BETTER than ATI/AMD cards do. I am no "fanboi" of Nvidia.. but Through all of my building experience,.. I always have gone back to Nvidia over AMD for graphics due to driver issues, compatibility, performance, etc. AMD cards DO offer great performance and obviously beat the price point on Nvidia cards -- but there is a reason Nvidia can be a little more expensive and still succeed. If AMD Cards were no different than Nvidia people simply wouldn't put more money out for them. It's that simple.
Overall Review: Only con here is the price. Otherwise, card was easy to install,.. and has ZERO issues with any software I've thrown at it.