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Gregory B.

Gregory B.

Joined on 03/17/04

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The road to success is always under construction...

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Most Favorable Review

Quite possibly the best video card I have owned.

ASUS GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Graphics Card STRIX-GTX970-DC2OC-4GD5
ASUS GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Graphics Card STRIX-GTX970-DC2OC-4GD5

Pros: Quiet Huge HSF with 10mm heat pipe! Custom design 6 digital power phases No coil buzz Maxwell gpu Low power consumption 1 x 8pin power socket only Low load temps~68C Fast Fast Fast

Cons: No accessories Video card is larger and heavier than I expected.

Overall Review: I get all bothered by people posting comments when they do not actually own the card! I now have two of these in my main rig in SLI. They replaced a pair of watercooled HD R9-290's. To be honest there was no real need for me to 'upgrade' from the R9-290's to the GTX 970's, however I have been disappointed recently by mantle support and the bugs in BF4. My R9-290's were running at 1150mhz on the core and I was able to score just over 17,000 in Firestrike. With a pair of GTX 970's I score a little over 18,000. Not a huge increase. I will be putting waterblocks on these eventually, however I have been running these stock since I received them and I am not able to hear them when the computer idles. At full load I can just make out both cards, and this is likely due to the fact that I am running them in sli. Having a single card will reduce airflow concerns and a single card will be cooler than SLI. Even so I saw maximum temps of 68C when playing games. I am not a Nvidia fanboy but I must confess that I prefer the drivers to the AMD drivers... I installed Metro Last Light again and the spot where I used to crash with my R9-290's was fine with these GTX 970's, BF4 looks sublime and I have even gone back to Farcry 3.... I am impressed with these cards, they are a custom pcb, with decent 6 phase digital vrm's and a massive cooler. They are quiet, fast and use around 280W less power at full load than a pair of overclocked R9-290's (according to my Kill-a-watt meter), as far as speed is concerned, I do not see a huge improvement over a pair of overclocked R9-290's, but they manage to pull off a slight speed advantage while using less power and putting out much less heat and noise. IMO these are the cards to beat. I run my games on a 2560x1440 monitor that runs at 120hz. A single card is perfect for 60fps at 2560x1440.... I can't think of anything bad to say about these cards...

Most Critical Review

Update to my previous review

SteelSeries Siberia V3 Single 4-Pole Connection Connector Circumaural Gaming Headset
SteelSeries Siberia V3 Single 4-Pole Connection Connector Circumaural Gaming Headset

Pros: See original review below.

Cons: Self adjusting headstrap already split open!

Overall Review: I now have concerns about durability of this product as the self adjusting headstrap has already split open along one seam. Another egg off.

10/29/2015

Midrange card delivers the goods...

SAPPHIRE PURE Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6 PCI Express 5.0 x16 ATX Graphics Card 11349-02-20G
SAPPHIRE PURE Radeon RX 9070 16GB GDDR6 PCI Express 5.0 x16 ATX Graphics Card 11349-02-20G

Pros: Great performance Looks sharp in white RT performance much improved Very quiet cooler Card stays cool under load 16Gb VRAM FSR4 support Overclocked card boost clock 2700mhz Undervolts nicely Uses 2x8pin power plugs

Cons: Not a huge uplift compared to the 7800XT 3+slots wide Paid over MSRP Overclocking pointless

Overall Review: My sons 6700XT finally gave out and I have been looking at 9060 16Gb cards as replacement, however performance between the 6700XT and 9060 were similar. As it was an opportunity to find him a replacement with better performance I took a look elsewhere. He games at 1080P and 144hz, so a 9070 was overkill. I game at 2560 and 180hz, and have been extremely happy with my 7800XT, so it made sense for me to give my son the 7800XT and upgrade my PC to a 9070. Prices are all over the place, but this card was closest to MSRP, so I made the purchase. The card is a similar size to my 7800XT, but it takes up over 3 slots!, this is a big card, make sure you have space in your pc. It is an exceptionally fast card, playing all of the games I usually play without issues or the need to enable and use FSR. Based on the games I play, I was seeing approximately 20% uplift, not as much as I would usually look for when upgrading my GPU. During gaming, the card stayed cool and quiet with the GPU hotspot at 68C and the gpu itself running at around 57-61C and the fan speed at less than 55% With -75mV undervolt and +300 offset on the GPU the card was boosting to 3000mhz+ instead of the stock 2700Mhz. AMD are not making a reference card this generation, I feel that perhaps we have been misled by AMD to imagine that third party vendors would start pricing for their 9070s at $550. Usually AMD will quote prices for reference designs and third party vendors prices their cards higher due to the fancy coolers and overclocks. I certainly paid more for this version of the 9070, but way less than the scalpers were asking. This is a premium card, at $619 it is still good value compared to competition.

Great value pc case with unique design

Corsair FRAME 4000D RS Black Steel / Tempered Glass ATX Mid Tower Computer Case- 3X CORSAIR RS Fans
Corsair FRAME 4000D RS Black Steel / Tempered Glass ATX Mid Tower Computer Case- 3X CORSAIR RS Fans

Pros: Fantastic looking case with unique front mesh pattern Pre-installed 3xRS120mm performance fans Multiple options for radiator mounting Amazing airflow Anti-sag bracket Good cable management Well designed dust filters 3D printed parts available for modding

Cons: Noisy fans at full speed Front IO is at the bottom of the case Fingerprint magnet No rear fan included Side panels can be difficult to remove and flex significantly Top panel rubber handle broke off first time it was used Per-installed standoffs did not match standard mATX board No printed manual.

Overall Review: Corsair is an American computer peripheral company with its headquarters in California. They were incorporated in 1994 and I started buying their DRAM products in 2003. Since then Corsair has brought to market power supplies, flash drives, keyboards mice and computer cases. Over the years I have enjoyed using many of their products. Ive been looking for a mid-size case to upgrade my sons pc. He was using watercooling and had 2x360mm radiators to cool his Ryzen PC, so I wanted to find a smallish case that could accommodate his watercooling setup. I also have a 3D printer here, so was interested to learn that there is a modding community set around these Frame cases and I could download and print some mods for the case. After taking apart my sons pc, he decided that water cooling was too much bother and he wanted to go back to air-cooling. Well, the Frame 4000D from Corsair was ideal for both air cooling and water-cooling and this particular case came with 3xRS120mm performance fans pre-installed. Usually, when building in to a new case I like to have printed instructions and this case did-not come with any, so I had to download and print from the internet, not a huge issue, but I am still someone who likes to read manuals! The Frame was easy to take to pieces, even though some of the thumbscrews needed a screwdriver to turn and the panels were tough to remove for the first few times. After this, building the pc into this case was relatively simple. I needed to move some of the standoffs as they did not line up with the mATX motherboard I was using. I also did not use the anti-Sag arm as this clearly had in mind bigger video cards than my sons reference 6700XT SSDs were easy to mount and the whole build was completed in less than an hour, including cable management. I did add a 140mm case fan at the back as I felt that it needed an exhaust fan. I did not specifically measure temperatures with this case, but my son has been gaming with the case and has had no issues with components overheating. I did need to setup a fan profile for the pre-installed fans and they were loud at full spin. I set them at 50% where they are pretty quiet. The case panels are fingerprint magnets, so be warned. Outside of this, I am impressed with this case, build quality is good, the design is great, care and thought were put in to fan and radiator locations along with the dust filters. I do believe that it makes sense to spend the extra and go for the ARGB fans as these are an expensive upgrade, if purchased on their own and having illuminated fans would really show off the floating mesh at the front of the case. The one issue that I had with this case was the front IO panel is down at the bottom of the case, perhaps not an issue for those of you who have their case on a desk, but for me, bending down to switch the pc on, or to plug in a usb stick if a bit of a pain. All in all a great value case for the money.

Good value proposition for the right buyer.

Crucial 64GB 262-Pin DDR5 SO-DIMM DDR5 5600 (PC5 44800) Laptop Memory Model CT64G56C46S5
Crucial 64GB 262-Pin DDR5 SO-DIMM DDR5 5600 (PC5 44800) Laptop Memory Model CT64G56C46S5

Pros: High capacity Faster than DDR4 More bandwidth than DDR4 Lower latency than DDR4 Reasonable price for a single stick. Should work in a variety of compatible laptops, see cons. Crucial reliability and warranty

Cons: Cas latency 46 Single stick rather than 2x32gb sticks Compatibility: few laptops might support single sticks of 64Gb capacity.

Overall Review: I have an inexpensive laptop that runs a single stick of 32Gb PC4800 DDR5 memory and according to the manufacturers website, 32Gb is the maximum amount of supported memory. I did take a look on AMD's website though, and after a little digging, it appears that my laptop's AMD chipset can support up to 128Gb DDR5 RAM. While I do run blender on the laptop, I can't really say that I need 64Gb of ram. Even my gaming PC runs fine with a 32Gb kit. Is this stick overkill for me...Yes, however for people doing video editing and 3D rendering or analyzing large datasets, 64GB may be ideal. Anyhow, I took a chance and installed the single stick of Crucial ram, replacing the original stick that was running previously. Laptop booted perfectly into Windows. No issues. Task Manager reported 64GB, CPU-Z reported 64GB and my applications all ran smoothly. While I have not run any specific performance tests, I can say that my laptop feels faster and smoother, I can't definitively state that this is because of the extra capacity as this new Crucial stick is also faster than the original RAM. Crucial provides a limited lifetime warranty on this stick of ram and their reputation is stellar. Please remember that this ram is not a replacement for DDR4, and care must be taken to make sure that your laptop will run with these dense sticks of ram. I am extremely happy with this memory and award 5 stars.

Speedy M2 drive that will not break the bank.

Crucial P310 M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 4.0 x4 NVMe 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive Speed Up to 7100 MBps (SSD) CT1000P310SSD8
Crucial P310 M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 4.0 x4 NVMe 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive Speed Up to 7100 MBps (SSD) CT1000P310SSD8

Pros: Up To 7100MB/s sequential reads and 6000MB/s sequential writes 5 year limited warranty 232-layer 3D QLC NAND Phison PS5027-E27T Controller Free Storage Executive software (Momentum Cache and Firmware updates) Free Acronis True Image software

Cons: Not quite able to reach 7100MB/s sequential reads No DRAM Cache SSD Endurance 220TB No heatsink or screw for mounting on motherboard.

Overall Review: Im a huge fan of M2 NVMe storage. My first M2 drive was a 1TB HP EX920 purchased in 2018 for $328. My current drive is a 2TB Crucial P3 Plus. This drive has a Phison E21T controller and Micron 176 QLC. In theory PCIe 4.0x4NVMe is good for 8066MB/s my P3 Plus drive was good for 4934MB/s read and 3975MB/s write. It was time to upgrade to something faster and the new Crucial P310 was the logical choice. With a low cost, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB options, a new Phison controller with 232 Layer 3D QLC Nand and reads and writes up to 7100 and 6000MB/s respectively, I was excited to use this drive. I installed this in the second M2 slot on my motherboard, keeping the larger 2TB P3 Plus as the boot drive. Installation was easy, even though I had to find another mounting screw as this M2 drive did not come with one. Crucial provide a free copy of Acronis True Image software and Storage Executive to get you up and running quickly and to optimize the drive. I used Storage Executive to update firmware and enable Momentum Cache (promising even better performance by allocating some of your PC DRAM as cache as this drive is DRAM less). I use a number of programs to test speeds on all of my drives, including ATTO, Crystal Disk Mark and AS SSD. ATTO recorded reads up to 6530MB/s and writes of 6140MB/s, Crystal Disk Mark, 6855MB/s and 6014MB/s read and writes and AS SSD recorded reads of 5604MB/s and writes of 4991MB/s. While I was not able to achieve the Crucial stated speed of 7100MB/s read, I exceeded the 6000MB/s write speed. All in all, an exceedingly speedy M2 drive. This drive comes in various capacities, is very fast, and has a 5 year limited warranty as well as free Acronis cloning software and Crucial Storage Executive software. The only negative I can see is an endurance of 220TB but with a 5 year warranty any endurance concerns should be minimal. Recommended.

seller reviews
  • 4

Poor product quality.

Don't bother buying from this company. My watch arrived in a broken box that was Scotch taped together. No warranty, so obviously grey market. Unacceptable in my opinion.

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Satisfactory

Great value and speedy shipping

Ordered some solar powered garden lights. Great value and arrived quickly. No complaints, will buy from this seller again.

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Satisfactory

Good overall reseller.

No problems with this reseller. Will buy from again.

On-time
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Satisfactory