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James-Brandon E.

James-Brandon E.

Joined on 11/05/05

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Most Favorable Review

Excelent Card

Acer Predator BiFrost Arc A770 Video Card Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 OC DP.BKCWW.P02
Acer Predator BiFrost Arc A770 Video Card Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 OC DP.BKCWW.P02

Pros: Runs cool, looks great, and the noise level is decent. Intel has come a long way with the drivers and I've had zero issues with them. Plays almost all my games on high settings @1440p. Cyberpunk, LoL, WoW, CoD, Diablo 4. Battlefield 2042 I run on low-medium settings but the game still looks good. Excellent in Photoshop/Lightroom, AV1 encoding, a beast in DaVinci Resolve, smooth scrubbing at 6k when paired with an i5 13600k.

Cons: I haven't run into any issues so far.

Overall Review: I would 100% buy again, I was hesitant to buy a GPU manufactured by Acer at first however after watching Gamers Nexus review and tear down I decided to make the purchase and am glad I did. Intel has resolved most of the driver issues that plagued Arc on launch, there is still performance in these cards that future driver updates will unlock. With 16GBs of vRAM, this card is a better long-term buy than the new 4060TI or 7600.

Most Critical Review

Almost

Enermax MarbleBron RGB 850W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified, Semi-Modular, ATX12V / EPS12V, 5 Year Warranty, Active PFC Power Supply EMB850EWT-RGB
Enermax MarbleBron RGB 850W 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified, Semi-Modular, ATX12V / EPS12V, 5 Year Warranty, Active PFC Power Supply EMB850EWT-RGB

Pros: It works well and does what it should do.

Cons: The included power cable was bad, of course, it was the last thing I tested when troubleshooting... The plastic around one of the pins on the motherboard connector was half gone though still seems to work and hasn't caught fire yet.

Overall Review: Quality control should be a little better however the product works fine and would buy it again.

MSI Claw

MSI Handheld CLAW A1M-051US 7" FHD 120Hz Intel Core Ultra 7-155H 16GB 512GB
MSI Handheld CLAW A1M-051US 7" FHD 120Hz Intel Core Ultra 7-155H 16GB 512GB

Pros: I use this way more then I thought I would. Joycons are awesome, using Windows with the touch screen and joycons is much easier then I thought. Most all games I've tested or played have worked just fine. Good battery life. Works really well on a thunderbolt/USB-C dock with external monitors.

Cons: Some games are just better with mouse and keyboard...

Overall Review: This is an excllent handheld, I would have probably went with the Core Ultra 5 looking back since the GPU on both are the same and it does use less power. 100% would buy again etherway.

Asus Zenbook 14

ASUS ZenBook 14 Ultra-Slim Laptop 14" Full HD NanoEdge Bezel Display, AMD Ryzen 7 4700U CPU, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB PCIe SSD, NumberPad, Windows 10 Pro, Pine Grey, UM425IA-NH74 - Only at Newegg
ASUS ZenBook 14 Ultra-Slim Laptop 14" Full HD NanoEdge Bezel Display, AMD Ryzen 7 4700U CPU, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB PCIe SSD, NumberPad, Windows 10 Pro, Pine Grey, UM425IA-NH74 - Only at Newegg

Pros: Ryzen 7 Build Windows Hello Audio - Comes with a USB C Dac Battery Life Extremely Fast The best unboxing experience ever Looks amazing

Cons: Had some issues with wifi to start with but seems to have stopped after updates. It would be very slow until I reconnected or switched SSIDs after waking up form sleep. However updates seem to have resolved the issue.

Overall Review: About Me: For the past 7 years I have been working in corporate/enterprise I.T. - I worked for over 10 years at a computer shop building and repairing desktops and laptops. I looked for a few weeks for a Windows laptop that I could justify buying over one of the new Apple M1's. This was it, Ryzen 7 competes with the M1 much better then even the new intel 11th gen i7's. You would have to pay over double for an M1 Mac with 16GBs and 1TB NVMe SSD. I played LoL with over 100 FPS with default settings and it looked great. Capture one edits Sony A7rII photos just fine, 42MPs. I also use Davinci Resolve and I have had no issues encoding 4k videos. Build quality is outstanding, this looks amazing. Battery last much longer then any laptop I've ever used. Asus needs to keep doing this!!!

Thermaltake Versa II

Thermaltake Versa II VO700A1N3N Black SGCC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Thermaltake Versa II VO700A1N3N Black SGCC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Well Built, lots of room, SSD mount, bottom mount power supply decent cable management

Cons: None

Overall Review: You have to remove the front panel to remove the drive inserts.

Refurb: Steelseries Shift

SteelSeries 64105 Shift Keyboard
SteelSeries 64105 Shift Keyboard

Pros: Solid Keyboard, USB and Audio ports work fine. Lots of features. Perfect size.

Cons: The right side space bar key (smaller side) doesn't seem to work but not an issue since I don't use that key anyway but enough to take off an egg,

Overall Review: It came in the original box, could barely tell it had even been opened. Keyboard was warped in plastic, owner manual had not been opened at all and the case sticker was still inside.