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James W.

James W.

Joined on 01/03/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Great price, great product!

Transcend 1GB MicroSD Flash Card Model TS1GUSD
Transcend 1GB MicroSD Flash Card Model TS1GUSD

Pros: Great price, works well, 100% compatible with my LG CU500 phone - stores 200+ songs in CD quality, more if I lower the MP3 quality.

Cons: None

Overall Review: It's worked very well for me, no complaints - can't beat the price.

Great Card for the Money

HIS Radeon X1650XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card H165XTQT256GDDN-R
HIS Radeon X1650XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card H165XTQT256GDDN-R

Pros: Factory overclock really provides some fantastic gameplay. I had a GeForce 7600GS 512MB and moved to this card (just to compare) and bumped my 3DMark06 score up nearly 900 points - so I'm keeping it! I can run BF2142 at max settings, I can run almost every game I play at very high to max settings - Star Wars: Empire at War, Vanguard, LOTR:BFME2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance. HDR Ligting effects are AWESOME and plus, since the card is made for HDR, it can run FSAA at 2x and 4x AND HDR at the same time!

Cons: Don't let this card fool you - even though it doesn't have a separate power connection, you still need a decent power supply for this card to work properly. I had a cheap 380W PSU - games were crashing and I would get artifacts from the video card. However, I spent a little money and got a 400W PSU that had 20A on the 12V (instead of 11A on the old one) and now it works perfectly - zero artifacts, zero crashing. Don't let the nay-sayers on this card keep you from buying it, if you have an OEM, junk PSU, you might have problems.

Overall Review: I wish I didn't have to buy a PSU to make it work - that's the reason I got this and not an X1950. But, what's a budget gamer to do. Spent $xx on a new PSU and now it works great. For me, that's better than spending $xxx on a card and PSU.

A Good Value

PC CHIPS A31G (1.0) ( W/AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+) AMD Sempron 3000+ Mobile 754 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX
PC CHIPS A31G (1.0) ( W/AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+) AMD Sempron 3000+ Mobile 754 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX

Pros: Great value for the price. However, I think there is another combo out that is cheaper now. Works well.

Cons: On-board LAN didn't work (drivers didn't work in XP Pro SP2) for some reason. Picked up a LAN card for 15-20 bucks. Wasn't compatible with my AGP card (but that's ok because I was looking for an excuse to get a PCI-E card anyway). Also, as some have mentioned the CMOS jumper is mislabeled. I had to remove the CMOS jumper completely in order to get it working.

Overall Review: It's a good value and a cheap way to transition to PCI-E. Make sure to check the AGP compatability guide on the PC Chips website. I don't recommend even attempting to overclock this processor - I tried to overclock it just a tiny bit and it locked up the whole computer. I had to reset the CMOS just to get it running again.

Forgot one thing

PC CHIPS A31G (1.0) ( W/AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+) AMD Sempron 3000+ Mobile 754 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX
PC CHIPS A31G (1.0) ( W/AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+) AMD Sempron 3000+ Mobile 754 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX

Pros: see my previous review

Cons: see my previous review

Overall Review: I just wrote a review for this and forgot one thing...this processor is not intended for overclocking - I tried just overclocking it a tiny bit and the whole thing crashed. So, while the mobo has the capability, the processor doesn't (remember, this is a Mobile Sempron, not a standard Sempron). I'm going to get an Athlon 64 3200+ pretty soon, so we'll see what happens then.

Good Deal

PC CHIPS A31G (1.0) ( W/AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+) AMD Sempron 3000+ Mobile 754 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX
PC CHIPS A31G (1.0) ( W/AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+) AMD Sempron 3000+ Mobile 754 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX

Pros: It's a great combo price and is a much needed upgrade to my previously Celeron based system. Works great, runs all my games very well - much better than my previous system did. Granted I put in a bit better graphics card, but the Sempron is an outstanding processor for us budget gamers (if you don't believe me, just Google "Sempron vs. Celeron" and you'll see that the Sempron blows away the Celeron in nearly every category, especially gaming).

Cons: As stated before, CMOS is mislabeled, I had to leave the jumper completely off in order for it to work. Had an issue with the drivers for the on-board ethernet connection (but I had a network card I could use in it's place). Wasn't compatible with my ATI X700 Pro AGP card - but that was a blessing in disguise, because I now own a pretty nice PCI-E graphics card.

Overall Review: Overall, it's a great value, especially for anyone trying to build a "budget" PC. I'm running this with 1GB PC3200 RAM, and currently an nVidia GeForce 7600GS 512MB. It runs BF2142 at MAX settings without any lag. It's a great value, but will require some decent knowledge of computer building to get it all working properly.