Pros: Great audio quality

Cons: Lots of tweaking required, weak headphone output

Overall Review: When I first tried this card, I was almost ready to return it. It sounded worse than my aging X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, and had clicks and pops. I moved the headphones (Senn. HD 280s) to the front speaker channel, and tweaked the equalizer, which made the sound much better. I fixed the clicks and popping by adjusting the buffer size from 3ms to 6ms (ASIO settings). Once I did that, the sound was great. Aside from minor inconvenience of the FP output apparently not being adequate to drive a pair of HD 280s (which is odd, since the front channel uses the exact same opamp), the card is a good buy for the price. But be ready to spend some time adjusting the settings.

Pros: Great gameplay concept.

Cons: The fact that they can control what is supposed to be MY copy of the game on MY computer is outright disturbing, to say the least. Since I have gone through 4 motherboards in the last 2 years, that means the 3-install limit will turn my game into a coaster in about 18 months. I play games a lot longer than that. I even go back and play games like HL1 from time to time. Not so for Spore, thanks to Suck-u-ROM.

Overall Review: EA has completely trashed what would otherwise be an awesome game. All in the hopes of making an extra buck or two.

Pros: Good sound range Strong bass Great performance for the price

Cons: Would have liked the wires to be coiled so that they aren't dangling around

Overall Review: Bought these as a replacement for my worn out Sennheiser HD 280 headphones. Was a little skeptical if these would be as good, but they seem to hold up quite well. The sound quality is great, and the bass is deep. The retractable mic is a nice added bonus.

Pros: -Quite fast for the price -Low power/heat output

Cons: -Not overclockable

Overall Review: My first PC build had a Pentium 4 single core OC'ed to 4GHz. It ran hot enough to heat a room and had a huge copper cooler. A decade later and CPUs are orders of magnitude faster and put out far less heat. Even with the stock cooler, this CPU is silent. It's a great buy in terms of power and efficiency. However, if you do want to overclock, you'll have to cough up the extra cash for a K-series CPU.

Pros: -Almost completely silent -Solid performer at 1080p

Cons: -Large for a midrange GPU

Overall Review: Bought this card to replace a 650TI. For the price, it is a good upgrade to replace an older GPU. Whereas the 650's fan would be screaming during gaming, this card is silent. Of course, the cooler is huge, and it runs the entire width of my motherboard - so this card may not be ideal for smaller cases. That said, if your case can fit it, it is worth the extra size for silent gaming. The 3GB is fine for 1080//1440p, but beyond that, you'll want the 6GB version. Note: I have opted not to install the OC software after finding that the card performed well enough in all my games. I may revisit this review later after trying out the software.

Pros: I've had these for around 6 years, and they still work great. For the money you can't do better in terms of sound and durability.

Cons: A bit utilitarian looking, but it doesn't really matter when you're wearing them.

Overall Review: Those who complain about the audio quality don't seem to grasp the concept of an equalizer. Every pair of speakers and headphones is different, and if you don't adjust the equalizer to match, they will sound bad.