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Michael E.

Michael E.

Joined on 01/26/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review

Good for old consoles.

Gefen GTV-COMPSVID-2-HDMIS Composite to HDMI Scaler
Gefen GTV-COMPSVID-2-HDMIS Composite to HDMI Scaler

Pros: Very low latency. According to one of the reps from Gefen it is less than a frame. I believe it. When recording video between my LCD and a CRT with the same signal going to both, it's all just the CRT being faster by design. Picture quality is very good. Using S-Video I can actually see the dithering in N64 games. Supports just about any modern resolution for computer monitors and TVs. Works with an HDMI>DVI adaptive cable. Audio can be sent out through 3.5mm or optical audio out. Decent options in the menu. You can adjust aspect ratio in there if the TV/monitor does not support it. Uses a universal AC adapter for various regions. I am only familiar with the North American plug but I would presume one of these is for Europe.

Cons: Gets a bit warm for my liking. I have all the classic consoles hooked up to one power strip that I turn off when not in use. This scaler is hooked to that. The AC adapter has these swappable 'plates' for the region you are using the unit in. They require a bit of force to get seated. Snug once in though.

Overall Review: I bought this out of frustration with my TV not having S-Video and generally looking awful with composite. The scaler in my TV was very fast already, but this matches it and has far superior picture quality. I have used it with N64 and NES so far. In composite you can get away with turning sharpness up to 5 before you start seeing artifacts, S-Video I put it at 45 and it looks good. It would be nice if there was some sort of scanline emulation to make games look a bit like they did on CRTs, but extra processing just leads to higher latency which is the last thing anybody (sane) wants. Menu map: Decent options in the scaler's menu. You can adjust aspect ratio in there if the TV/monitor does not support it. Contrast Brightness Finetune>Hue, Saturation, Sharpness, Noise reduction Color Size> Full, Overscan, Underscan, Letterbox, Panscan Output, varius resolutions, including european 576P/I Audio>Source: L/R and Optical, Delay: 40, 110, 150. OSD, H-Position, V-Position, Timer, Background (Opacity) Factory Reset Information Exit

Much better than reference 670

ARCTIC Accelero Mono Plus VGA Cooler - nVidia & AMD, 120mm Efficient PWM Fan, SLI/CrossFire
ARCTIC Accelero Mono Plus VGA Cooler - nVidia & AMD, 120mm Efficient PWM Fan, SLI/CrossFire

Pros: Very quiet, very effective. My EVGA GTX 670 with a reference cooler would idle at 65C, load at about 95C, and was so loud... atrociously so. My idle temps with this cooler is about 35C, load is around 60C.. and I can't hear it. Provided instructions were decent, I was able to perform the installation without any issues.

Cons: This thing is big.. the price you pay beyond your dollar is in space. It's effectively a three slot GPU now.

High value

Microsoft Keyboard 200 6JH-00001 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard
Microsoft Keyboard 200 6JH-00001 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard

Pros: Cheap, light weight, quiet, and does the job. It has made a good backup keyboard.

Cons: Keys have gotten a little mushy with time but that's rubber dome for you.

Overall Review: This is the keyboard I tell people to get if they just want a cheap keyboard that works. If you go much cheaper you'll find build quality to be a problem.

Good.

EVGA 04G-P4-2673-KR GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked+ w/Backplate 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
EVGA 04G-P4-2673-KR GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked+ w/Backplate 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: Fast. Comes with some fancy stickers.

Cons: Hot at default fan speeds. 80C+ because it simply doesn't want to increase the fan speed and make noise. Idling at 67C is just silly.

Overall Review: Install EVGA Precision X and setup a fan curve to fix this. It gets a little noisy but whatever. Upping it from 30% speed to 55% has negligible amounts of extra noise and drops the temps to high 30s/low 40s when idle.

Beastly

Cooler Master HAF X - High Air Flow Full Tower Computer Case with Windowed Side Panel and USB 3.0 Ports
Cooler Master HAF X - High Air Flow Full Tower Computer Case with Windowed Side Panel and USB 3.0 Ports

Pros: Built like a tank. Can hold lots of stuff. Laughed at my space requirements of my Noctua NH-D14 and GTX 670, had plenty left. Push buttons for optical drive bays work very well. Bottom mounted PSU, very nice. Lots of routing on the opposite side behind the mother board tray. Lots of airflow with all the fans. Pair it with demciflex filters and you wont have dust storm from all the intake. Very easy installation of 3.5 drives, has these neat little brackets you put the drives into, and then into the bays. Came with one 2.5>3.5 adapter for an SSD or laptop drive. Motherboard tray has a diagram for various motherboard form factors. Slide cover for power buttons is nice.

Cons: Hot swap bays are tedious to use since you have to screw in the drives. The fans are cheap sleeve bearings. For the price it should come with better fans. The front 230mm fan with it's RED LED failed, started making a lot of noise. Replaced it with another cooler master 230mm fan without the LED, worked okay for about a year before failing as well.

Overall Review: Sold this case. Too heavy, and all my stuff fit into my old mid tower anyway which makes it far more convenient for LANs. It was nice, but I'm beyond the whole 'Gotta have a gigantic monolithic black colossus of a case!' phase now. My build: Intel Ivy Bridge i7-3770K @ 4.2Ghz | Asus P8Z77-V | EVGA GeForce GTX 670 4gb SuperClocked /W Backplate | Cooler Master HAF X 4x4 G.Skill Ripjaws X 10666 | 128GB and 256GB Crucial M4 | 2xWD1002FAEX 1TB | Noctua NH-D14 | Corsair AX850 Windows 7 x64 Pro | IBM Model M 1391401 11-21-91 | Logitech G500 I crammed all that hardware back into my Antec Solution, and I have no regrets. Make no mistake, the Haf X will hold more, but for my purposes.. no more full tower builds.

Works

Athena Power CA-GSB01DA Black 0.8mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Athena Power CA-GSB01DA Black 0.8mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Straightforward install, twist brackets for 3.5 and 5.35 drives are convenient. Allows you to mount a 140mm fan on the front for intake.

Cons: Rear bracket for mounting PCI devices is useless if your GPU's PCB extends up a bit, but it's easily removed. Rear 120mm fan is noisy and has LEDs.

Overall Review: Did not notice any sharp edges, but I've been doing this for years and haven't had cut myself more than once or twice, even on the cheapest of cases. For the price you can't ask much more. It's not super sturdy or anything, but it does not feel like it will fall apart.