Joined on 01/10/08
Nice compact case
Pros: You can't beat it for the price. Nice looking. Smaller that most cases. Fits the basics, 1 CD drive & 2 hard disks. Has flip top lid on the front top of the case for audio & USB port access.
Cons: The CD drive is mounted vertically. I installed a Plextor drive and it works fine, no issues(even without installing these little glue on plastic tabs they give you to stick on the CD tray). This may be a problem if you hope to use mini-CD's. Haven't tried one yet. Full size CD's work fine.
Overall Review: The case comes with a 12v fan installed.(the description didn't make this clear). In addition the fan is quiet.
Overheating Issue after 1 month use
Pros: When its working, it works well.
Cons: Overheats and then stops working. Resumes working after a cool down period. This issue popped up after around a month of use. Considering the housing is plastic there is no good way to get heat out of the part.
Overall Review: Buy something else.
The whole computer idles at 28 Watts!
Pros: This processor is fantastic for a computer that is ON all the time. The power consumption is very low and the performance seems good.(I'm not a gamer so your results may be different. The whole computer idles at 28 Watts!!
Cons: The fan that comes with the CPU is noisy at top speed, however, this processor does not need that much cooling. I went into the BIOS and changed the CPU fan operating to run much slower and it cools the CPU just fine at low speed.
Overall Review: I bought this to build a PC based DVR system. I am using the following parts to get these results: (1) Western Digital AV-GP WD10EURX (HDD) (1) G.SKILL F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL (4GB RAM) (1) BIOSTAR B85MG (motherboard) (1) SeaSonic SS-300ES (power supply) (1) GeoVision GV-800B video capture card No graphics card, leveraging integrated graphics No CDROM either.... I plug in a USB version to load software then remove it. While compressing(H.264) and storing 4 full D1 resolution NTSC video feeds to disk the power consumption for the whole computer increases to 36 Watts. I believe there is also lots of reserve horsepower I can tap if I want to add more cameras. Very pleased with the results.
No power cord
Pros: Efficient design(bronze 80). Using this to power a board with a low power CPU so I expect to be operating at the lower end of this power supplies power range. Having the bronze 80 certification means the power supply won't waste all the power I'm saving from the lower power CPU. Good price.
Cons: A power cord was not included. I wish Newegg would have more clearly stated this even though it is not shown in the pictures so I could have ordered it at the same time. Now I'll have to order one separately.
pretty good for the money
Pros: Well thought out design. All the holes line up perfectly with my motherboard. Large fan included. Good build quality. Has mounting areas to add additional fans if you so choose.
Cons: My only gripe would be that since they painted the inside of all the panels, they don't conduct to each to create a faraday cage. Design doesn't look like it will do much to cool the hard drives(all designs are likely this way)
Really really good value for the money
Pros: Low Cost. High Quality. Cooling system. Very quiet fan. Design seems to be well thought out. Metal housing.
Cons: The cooling system only cools one side of the drive. I am not sure if most of the heat goes to one side or not.... so hard to say if this is really a bad thing. Does not support SATA III but SATA II is plenty good for my needs.