Joined on 09/30/08
THIS THING PWNS
Pros: EVERYTHING! This mammoth cooler has made all the difference in the world for me. My CPU was had alot of heat issues in the past, but ever since I put this baby on there, not single issue. My CPU was running around 68 C on a good day ( kinda scary ) with the stock heatsink. Currently, it is running at right around 28 C. AMAZING! Antec Nine Hundred Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H BFG 800W PSU HIS ATI Radeon HD4850 Seagate 320GB HDD 4 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ Windsor 3.0 GHz Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler
Cons: I cant complain about the size, but I have to for just a second. It gets a bit close to my DIMM sockets, but with a little redneck MOD to the fan, my RAM fit perfectly. May have to do a bit more modification if I up my RAM. But this thing cools SOOOO good, I can overlook that tiny con.
BF3
Pros: Not much really, constantly crashes, BSOD's, works a little better after I flashed my GPU BIOS, but still crashes a lot. When it works the game is incredible.
Cons: BSOD's all the time, crash to desktop all the time. I paid 65 bucks for a BETA game, kinda upset. I know they are going to fix it, but this makes MW3 look that much better.
Overall Review: Gigabyte 990X Mobo AMD 955BE @ 3.6 on Corsair H100 push/pull max 43C Gigabyte GTX560Ti 8GB Kingston HyperX Win7 Ultimate WD 1TB Caviar Black NZXT Phantom
Great when it worked
Pros: To this date, I really don't have much in the way of pros. When it ran CORRECTLY it was awesome.
Cons: Pretty much had trouble from day one with artifacting and flickering. I attributed this to a driver issue and was waiting for an updated driver release from AMD. I installed the beta driver and it improved very little. One day I restarted my machine and whenever it boots into windows it crashed. I have already RMA'd this card once and have gotten it back with the very same results. I have tried multiple slots and drivers to no avail. I have even reverted back to using the driver off of the CD that came with the card to make sure, nothing. The card boots and then crashes. I put my old XFX HD6950 into the machine and voila, no problems. I am not really happy about going through another RMA process to get my BRAND NEW card to work, and I am leaning toward asking for a refund from the mfr. (hopefully.) This is really a crying shame as I was about to buy an ASUS mobo to go with this card, but to be honest, I have a really bad taste in my mouth about ASUS right now and I don;t think I'll be buying anything from them again, and I will also be advising my gaming squad the same. I'll be sticking with XFX from my graphics needs from now on and keeping Gigabyte as my mobo supplier.
Overall Review: Just really disgruntled.
Sweet Board
Pros: This board is sweet, I upgraded to this from a 785G Gigabyte and this board is plain solid. Installed, loaded drivers, OC my 955 and boom, on my way to worry free gaming.
Cons: None so far, might upgrade my NIC to a Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100, but thats not Gigabyte's fault, just want to bypass the onboard NIC
I Like It
Pros: I went from a BFG Nvidia 8600GTS OC2 to this card, so it was definately an upgrade for me. Getting a great framerate in everything I have been playing ( WoW ( Lich King and Cataclysm Beta), MW2, BFBC2) Love the cooling on this monster.
Cons: None yet.
Nice Board
Pros: Dual BIOS, Cost, Seems like a really solid board and for someone like me who is on a budget and needed to have my rig fixed to continue the WoW Beta and didnt want to go to a new CPU, this board is perfect for that. Current Build: Antec Nine Hundred Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H BFG 800W PSU HIS ATI Radeon HD4850 Seagate 320GB HDD 4 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ Windsor 3.0 GHz Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler
Cons: DIMM sockets are a little close to my cpu cooler, had to do a little redneck MOD to make the cooling fan not hit my RAM, but other than that itty bitty little con, there are no cons as of yet.