Joined on 12/01/06
wow
Pros: A very nice upgrade from a 8600gts went from 5000~ in 3dmark to 8000~. Runs crysis (64bit version) at 1400x1050 with many settings on high not sure the fps but its relativly smooth and looks amazing. The heatsink does a good job and doesn't make much noise*
Cons: It's what the 8600 line of cards should of been. *The fan goes fullspeed when the computer is booting up and sounds like a jet, however its very quiet once the computer is booted up and doesn't make much noise during games. The card is very long and could be an issue in some cases
Overall Review: This was part of an overall upgrade so I took down some 3d mark scores. CPu AMD64x2 5000 -old 8600gts 256M, 2gigs of ram vista 32bit 5419 3dmark -thiscard 9600gt 3.3gigs of ram detected vista 32bit 8095 3dmark -with vista64 6 gigs of ram, 8323 3dmark.
Good hardware, bad software
Pros: The hardware seems solid, remote works with windows media center
Cons: The included software is poor and introduces a 2 sec lag making it worthless for game systems. The remote is a very poor build quality
Overall Review: It took me a long time to find software that would let me use it to connect a ps2 without lag, eventually I found winamp + winamp tv plugin would let me do it. Haven't tested QAM quality, but analog is ok and over the air digital is good if you do not mulitask. (using included software, 3rd party software might give better results)-- Does work with Vista 64 but is more laggy then vista 32, it seems to use 32 bit drivers under x64 (tested on my 64bit desktop, and 32 bit laptop)-- you would think that a company like hauppauge that has been in the TV tuner business from the beginning would have developed better software by now
Pros: Low cost, a lot of fans.
Cons: Only the top fans use the standard 4 pin ATX power connector the other 3 use the motherboard connector, my MB only has 2 fan connections, and one is used for the cpu, so 2 of the fans are not connected to anything. By far the hardest case I've worked on. This is mostly do do to the location of the powersupply and how the PS cables barely reached. If you have a large video card, as most people who are looking for extra cooling probably do, you might run into problems unless your cables are extra long
Overall Review: The build quality is kinda low, but its a low cost case. The fans are audible, but not annoyingly so. If the case came with the ps adapters for the fans and extensions for the mb power cable it would be a much nicer case
Good buy
Pros: Going from a E3300 to this gave me about a 30% improvement in most games, and from an unplayable 10-20 fps in GTA4 to a enjoyable 25-55. (with 4 gigs of ram and 5770 on both chips) The fan is very quiet, much quieter then any stock amd cooler I've used in the past 6 years
Cons: However the cooler is very small and doesn't look like it would take any sort of over clocking.
Overall Review: Was able to unlock the 4th core, but windows refused to boot, as others have said if you need 4 cores, your better off getting a 4 core and not gamble. I was going to OC the chip a little but the really small stock cooler makes me not want to risk it
Great for the money
Pros: Great price, looks great, supports 1080p signal- (sorta it downscales to native)
Cons: No DVI, when using a hdmi cable windows thinks 1080i is its 'native' res resulting in blurry text by default do to the downscaleing. Not a big problem as you can change the res to its actual native (could be a video card issue, I have no idea)
Overall Review: I'm not sure what the deal is but its upscaler works a lot better with hdmi then vga, when using a vga cable the display is very blurry when upscaling low res like 800x600 and only slightly blurry almost to the point of it being native when using a hdmi cable (for the most part)
4core on the cheep
Pros: It's great for the multi-tasker on a budget, or budget gamers whose games support more then 2 cores
Cons: For apps and games that only support 2 or 1 core(s) It's slower then my old 5000+ (2.6ghz) that it replaced. The included cpu fan is crazy loud. I would guess 2-4x louder then the stock fan on the old 5000+
Overall Review: The very high watt rating is a major problem with many budget AM2 boards. If you care at all about how much noise your system puts out you'll need an aftermarket heatsink/fan