Pros: Beautiful, analog-out sound. Didn't even need to swap out the opamps - the sound is crisp, clear, full and rich. It's exactly the partner i was looking for for my monitors.

Cons: Can't say for sure, but I think this might cause some anomalies in some game sound. The trade is worth it in my mind, as listening to music at its full potential is much more important than game sound, which is usually heavily compressed anyway.

Overall Review: Bought this to soup up my studio monitors. Music sounds amazing, 10x better than what I was getting from onboard sound or my creative 5.1 set.

Pros: exist in physical space

Cons: one was DOA, replacement worked for 6 months but is now smart erroring - catastrophic "end-to-end error"

Pros: solid construction, good manual - seems reliable (1 month usage)

Cons: doesn't support "gaming keyboards" whatever that means doesn't support DVI dual-link (didn't know this until the support FAQ recommended I "fix" my problem by upgrading to a different product) what's the use case for headphone/microphone connection to multiple machines? would rather buy a product with stronger USB connectivity

Overall Review: expect to spend a lot of time swapping adapters/cords/peripherals to get more than one machine working smoothly. could be the tech as a whole, but I expected fewer gotchas at this price point

Pros: Works, seems sturdy and well-made

Cons: Why put everything in pointless bag? Who carries around a PSU separate from a computer? It's a waste of money and resources - seasonic is saying to their customers "here, you throw this away". 1) Rebate scam - after 3 months got a letter from them saying I did one thing wrong, but that they didn't know what it was. I was encouraged to cut out the UPC again and send it in (it's a one shot deal, seasonic. I can't cut it out of the package again). It's just an opportunity for the company to keep a bit of extra cash.

Overall Review: Newegg should never include rebates in their list prices, it's unseemly. You're paying the full original price, you just have a 50% chance to get a small amount of money back several months from now. Rebates are great when the company cares, but otherwise it's an artificial way to lower the price.

Pros: Great cooler, super low temps on a 4ghz overclock

Cons: Your Mileage May Vary. It's a huge radiator, so unless you're ready to make some rough-and-tumble decisions in your case, you're not ready for this cooler. If you've got a Corsair case, I'd imagine your job would be pretty simple. But I don't fault Corsair for the design of other cases. Has it's own on-board speed/temp control, which is controlled by a button ON the cpu itself (yup, inside the case). After firmware problems with releases, they actually suggest you cycle through the settings with your ear to the fan to see if it's going faster. Just give me an RPM control in bios, or a USB connection or something.

Pros: eVGA products are always expensive, but worth the premium. You know you're dealing with an American company that stands behind it's products, unlike some competitors. This motherboard continues my experienc with evga's exemplary design and reliability.

Cons: The on-board ethernets are on the cheap side, so teaming is done with a 3rd-3rd party utility culled from the internet that does a poor job. Unlike my ASUS boards, I'm artificially limited to 3mb/sec even teamed. Hence, less one egg.

Overall Review: Find reliable brands that work for you (with stateside support; nothing against foreign manufacturers, but when you're deep into BIOS you don't want a website that doesn't know their "theres" from their "they're"s). eVGA is mine.