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Dustin S.

Dustin S.

Joined on 05/30/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 44
Most Favorable Review

Amazing

GIGABYTE GV-N770OC-4GD GeForce GTX 770 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready WindForce 3X 450W Video Card
GIGABYTE GV-N770OC-4GD GeForce GTX 770 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready WindForce 3X 450W Video Card

Pros: Amazing performance. Energy efficient automatic fan control. Solid build. Gigabyte Guru II software is very user friendly. No issues with current nvidia drivers. (Some older cards don't work correctly with it.)

Cons: Very large. Barely fits width of an Antec 1200 case. Actually blocks where SATA cables would plug in if I had a hard drive located across from it. Gigabyte's Guru II software lacks some monitoring features I would like to see. Such as video memory used (It gives speed not use), and max temperature previously reached. The fin is just silly.

Overall Review: The automatic fan control is actually very smart. At first I thought it wasn't working correctly because fan speeds were very low and weren't increasing much with temperature. Then I did a benchmark. From it's idle temp of 30-35C until around 50C you barely see any increase in fan speed, which stays around 17%. At around 60C fans speed reach 35%. By 65C fans get to 42%, but the card usually never reaches 70C. At 66% fans seem to get more aggressive and try to maintain temperature at that level without going overboard and lowering temperature. And you can of course adjust fans to your preference with Guru II software.

Most Critical Review

Not compatable with 64-bit.

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250(WinTV-HVR-2255) Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner w/ IR Remote PCI-E x 1
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250(WinTV-HVR-2255) Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner w/ IR Remote PCI-E x 1

Pros: Hardware is great.

Cons: No 64-bit support. The 32-bit drivers will work for awhile, then randomly fail and have major issues until it permanently stops working. Customer support is non-existent. You need to buy a separate USB receiver for the remote, the one it comes with is terrible.

Overall Review: I had given it 5-stars before because I thought I solved the issue, but apparently the fix was temporary and even that doesn't work any more.

10/18/2011

Silent, but mediocre

Noctua NF-F12 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (120mm, Brown)
Noctua NF-F12 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (120mm, Brown)

Pros: Silent at ~1500 RPM Cables are sleeved Comes with a V cable and extension cable.

Cons: Perform slightly worse than corsair H70 (CPU cooler) stock fans. Specifically states that it is "designed for pressure demanding applications such as heatsinks and radiators." But is ineffectual at doing so.

Overall Review: I bought this expecting my CPU to run slightly cooler with less noise. After all it is a $20 case fan with great reviews. After installing this fan I found that I had to manually go into the motherboard and set it for 100% all the time or it drops to 400 RPM and is completely ineffective until the CPU reaches 70 degrees. This problem does not happen with my other case fans. After doing that I noticed that my CPU still gets up to 67-69 degrees within the first few minutes of prime95 testing. With the corsair stock fans, which are not very good at all, I get 63-65 degrees. (Tested right before installing the Noctua) This is decent if you just want something quiet, but it honestly is not a great fan for pushing air through a radiator. All in all not worth the $20 for one fan that is quiet but makes my CPU run hotter.

Keeps CPUs cool

CORSAIR Hydro H70 CWCH70 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler
CORSAIR Hydro H70 CWCH70 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler

Pros: Keeps my CPU cool at 4.2 GHz. (4.4 GHz still cool, but I can't get it stable with voltages I'm comfortable with.) Doesn't have space issues with RAM close to CPU like a normal heatsink. Easier to maintain than custom water cooling. Looks very nice in an Antec 1200 case.

Cons: The mounting brackets are terrible. Very flimsy and barely able to secure as well as it needs to. I know the H80i brackets are much better, shame that wasn't out when I built my system. With using both push and pull fans it is hard to fit alongside a side mounted fan. Had to cut unneeded plastic edge off the side fan.

Overall Review: Bought this 5 years ago and still running strong.

Quiet

Nexus BASIC D12SL-12 Case cooler
Nexus BASIC D12SL-12 Case cooler

Pros: Quiet Works for my uses Low CFM (Can be a pro/con depending on use.) Includes 4-pin Molex converter Fancy material cover over the wires (Not shown in pictures, but it looks nice. Wish all fan wires had it.) Looks good

Cons: Low CFM (Can be a pro/con depending on use.)

Overall Review: My Antec 1200 came with all adjustable fans, but even at the lowest speed they were noisy in the back. The front fans have filters in front of them which dampen the sound a bit, and are actually quieter on full speed than the back ones are on low. (You can hear air passing through the fan.) I just wanted something quiet as exhaust, but I also wanted low CFM to keep air pressure positive and dust out of my case. This works very well.

Bad

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1463-KR GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1463-KR GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: When it works, runs games at max settings. Sure there are better cards, but this worked well for the price.

Cons: Only lasted a year. Then I started having mysterious driver crashes/recovers. (Everything would freeze up.) It got worse and worse. Finally I made absolutely sure this card was the issue then RMA'd. (It could be an nvidia driver issue since the card I used to test wasn't nvidia, but I have no way of knowing.) They sent me a refurbished card with similar but even worse issues.

Overall Review: Since this product is no longer sold this review is probably pointless, but oh well.