Pros: Good price - easy to install - hit the ground running, Kingston 2GB 240pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800, WD Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 SATA, E5300 2.6 GHz 65W Dual- Core, StarTech 6' 20 pin ATX power supply to 24 pin MB adaptor ATX2024MF, 8 year old Compaq case with 300 W pwr supply

Cons: put this micro ATX into an OLD Compaq ATX box - The I/O shield on the back that came with the MB did not align perfectly and needed to be trimmed.

Overall Review: If you are rebuilding something OLD with this remember that the motherboard uses a 24 pin power connector and older powersupplies are 20 pin - the adaptor is cheap enoung but if you buy things all at once the shipping is a little cheaper - New egg is great! Things get here so fast. This was a first build for my wife - an IT manager. Her face was all smiles when she saw how fast this new build formatted the drive, loaded windows and came up with no issues. Felt good not to put that box in the land fill.

Pros: My first build with the cheaper CF800 was great - CPU idles at 36 degrees C and mounting is secure enough to take the box to LAN parties

Cons: After installing a CF900 on a new build the CPU idles at 55 degrees C. The fan is only spinning at 760 RPM. I thought it was a poor job of applying thermal compound so I took the whole thing apart and cleaned the surfaces and remounted the heatsink only to get the same numbers. I tried to contact technical support at apack and they did not respond. I will probably do what others have done with this model and by pass the autospeed control.

Overall Review: For my second build which is the same as my first: an IntelCore 2 duo E6600 CPU and EVGA nForce 680i mother board: I thought I would go with the supposedly higher quality model- Mistake.

Pros: Contacted the manufacturer directly - they sent me a replacement and a shipping tag to return the original.

Cons: First the replacement cooler still gave the same result - 55 degrees C at CPU idle. We noticed some mechanical interference from the cast section of the mounting hardware at the edge that the copper plate slides into. I filed this down and then polished the copper contact plate - first 30 micron, then 8 micron, then 1 micron abrasive- pulled off the newer heatsink, prepared the surface of the CPU heat spreader with some artic silver products and used the thermal compound supplied with the heatsink. Slightly improved results- 50 degrees C at CPU idle. Fan speed moved up about 10 percent - so now I am prety confident about thermal conduction being what it should be and think the true problem is in the internal feedback. So finally I cut out the thermistor and shorted the sensor wires. The fan speed went up to max (above 2000 rpm ) and the CPU idle temp stabilized at 42 degrees C. --What an ordeal.

Pros: cleans up the thermal contact surfaces well- if you are cleaning the CPU while still in the socket use a little bit at a time and repeat so you do not cause a mess

Cons: This stuff smells good and does not have child proof caps- I hope it is not too toxic.

Pros: Stable mechanical mounting, fits perfect on the EVGA 680i mobo, good price, self regulating, quiet.

Cons: There are two caps on the back of my mobo where the mounting plate goes and I was cautious of breaking them so I drilled some clearance holes that did not undermine the strength of the plate. I deburred the holes and put some Kapton tape in those areas to insure nothing shorted.

Pros: Has been running for a day with out any problems. Able to set up with minimal documentation.

Cons: I have not been able to find any real docuentation on the OCZ website. I am used to having a real data sheet in front of me with min/typ/max specs- absolute max specs, pinout etc. Also, if you want the rebate from OCZ take care of that before you think of anything else. Unlike other companies OCZ will reject postmarks after 10 TEN days from invoice.

Overall Review: Using EVGA n Force 680i. If you care about money and want the rebate you might want to think twice about purchasing from this company for initial builds. You only have 10 days to get comfortable with their products before you forfeit the rebate. That means 10 days to commit since once you butcher the packaging you cannot return it.