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Michele C.

Michele C.

Joined on 11/29/01

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 12
Most Favorable Review

Good basic graphics.

HIS Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Graphics Card H700H64-1TOPN
HIS Radeon 7000 64MB DDR PCI Graphics Card H700H64-1TOPN

Pros: Great card, the 7000 is a rock solid low-end card that performs pretty nicely. Fast shipping. I was surprised to find both VGA and DVI on the card.

Cons: HIS's installer is a little intrusive. It throws weblinks on your desktop and, with most third party driver CDs, has a bizarre install procedure. Don't bother with the drivers on the CD, just go to ATI's page and grab the latest catalyst.

Overall Review: Great card, super cheap and a nice way to upgrade if you don't have an AGP/PCI-e slot, 64MB of RAM should be great for basic computing.

10/25/2006
Most Critical Review

Meh...

BIOSTAR N4SLI-A9 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
BIOSTAR N4SLI-A9 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: SLI, 64 bit ummm....PCI-E right guys? Yeah. Uh it doesn't crash unless you actually try to do something that would make your system run well.

Cons: AWFUL AWFUL MEMORY SUPPORT! Refuses to run my Corsair XMS at CAS 2. HONESTLY who doesn't support RAM companies like Corsair?! Slow, seems to dislike my IDE drive AND my CD-RW/DVD drive.

Overall Review: Get something more expensive. This is the worst motherboard I've ever used. Yeah it's probably good for the casual user but for someone like me who demands performance, this board is junk.

Best Socket A Heatsink Around.

Thermaltake VOLCANO 10+ 60mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink
Thermaltake VOLCANO 10+ 60mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink

Pros: I used to have one of these Volcano 10's on my old Athlon XP 2600+ system and it performed like a champ there, so it was no contest when I need another Socket A heatsink. Quiet, copper fins, keeps everything amazingly cool while not being a wind tunnel.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: This is seriously the best Socket A heatsink I've ever used. I've owned two of them for separate PCs and each time they've never failed to please. If you need a good Socket A heatsink for an Athlon XP system, go with this thing, it's cool, quiet, and very reliable. Also, the design makes it easy to clean the heatsink fan.

10/25/2006

Fast, solid platform.

EPoX EP-8NPA7I 754 NVIDIA nForce4 4X ATX AMD Motherboard
EPoX EP-8NPA7I 754 NVIDIA nForce4 4X ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Wasn't expecting a 754 nForce4 board, so this thing came as a surprise when I found it. Replaced a ULi board that died after a day. Rock solid performance, great BIOS, great price, very reliable.

Cons: As with a lot of motherboards, the manuals are ALWAYS lacking in information. The manual for this thing is about 3 pages, but in about 12 languages so it looks bigger. If you need documentation, check out EPoX's website, or other websites.

Overall Review: Excellent 754 board that handles my needs as a backup PC quite well.

10/25/2006

Fast, reliable, AMD.

AMD Sempron 64 2800+ - Sempron 64 Palermo Single-Core 1.6 GHz Socket 754 62W Processor - SDA2800BXBOX
AMD Sempron 64 2800+ - Sempron 64 Palermo Single-Core 1.6 GHz Socket 754 62W Processor - SDA2800BXBOX

Pros: Extremely reliable processor. Fast for being a Sempron and does a great job of handling what I need it to handle.

Cons: Gamers will want to go with something like an Athlon64 as the cache sizes, etc are lower on the Semprons.

Overall Review: Had this processor for a while now. The original motherboard burned out after a day, but the processor kept going. A great buy to get into the 64-bit world.

10/25/2006

Superb.

ASRock K7VM3 462(A) VIA KM266Pro Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
ASRock K7VM3 462(A) VIA KM266Pro Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Great motherboard layout, pretty decent amount of PCI slots, fast, great for a basic upgrade. Fast shipping and support from newegg.

Cons: None that I've encountered.

Overall Review: This is a perfect motherboard for someone looking to build a MicroATX machine, or to upgrade something older without going 64-bit. I used this motherboard along with a 2600+ Sempron to upgrade an aging Duron 1Ghz and it's quite a big improvement. Highly recommended. Make sure you grab a lower voltage AGP card though.

10/25/2006