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Giles P.

Giles P.

Joined on 03/31/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 29
Most Favorable Review

Excellent value. If you're shopping 1660s this is the one to get.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 GAMING OC 6G Graphics Card, 3 x WINDFORCE Fans, 6GB 192-Bit GDDR5, GV-N1660GAMING OC-6GD Video Card
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 GAMING OC 6G Graphics Card, 3 x WINDFORCE Fans, 6GB 192-Bit GDDR5, GV-N1660GAMING OC-6GD Video Card

Pros: The fastest boost clock out of the box at this price point. Everything plays smooth on Ultra settings at 1080p. Three fans so to things stay cool and quiet even under load. I can confirm (as many reviewers have noted online) that the 1660 is indeed a good overclocker.

Cons: Board is quite long, even in my mid-size case it took some fudging to finally get it seated properly. Much longer than the 660ti it replaced.

Overall Review: Although the third fan keeps things cooler, I don't really think it results in better overclocks since power is limited to +10% anyway.

Most Critical Review

Too good to be true?

AMC HM-501 Digiview 5-Port HDMI Switcher w/built-in equalizer
AMC HM-501 Digiview 5-Port HDMI Switcher w/built-in equalizer

Pros: Switched one of my sources.

Cons: Didn't switch the other two.

Overall Review: DVD Player wouldn't work (Panasonic DVD-S52S), gave a U 70-2 error indicating a problem with the cabling. My computer wouldn't work ekither (has a Sapphire Radeon X850-Pro). Tried cylcing all devices but no improvement, even tried other cables. I'm sending it back.

12/26/2006

Good value

Nippon Labs HDB-252 Dual 2.5" HDD/SS Plastic Bracket
Nippon Labs HDB-252 Dual 2.5" HDD/SS Plastic Bracket

Pros: Great way to pack two drives into one bay on a budget. Easy to install and all required screws are included.

Cons: Power and SATA connectors are difficult to attach due to the drives being stacked so close together. Possibly connectors could crack or separate under the pressure.

Awesome

MSI GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N660TI PE 2GD5/OC
MSI GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N660TI PE 2GD5/OC

Pros: Awesome performance, best 660Ti variant you can buy. MSI Afterburner makes it easy to boost performance even more. I do 3D gaming on my projector and this card definitely has enough horsepower for it, provided that you don't run all the settings MAX'd out on most games.

Cons: Kind of a bummer that you still have to pay extra $$$ for nVidia's 3D Play software if you want to run it on your 3D TV. This should be included as part of the driver, IMHO!

Overall Review: My last five graphics cards were ATI (going back to 2002), but thought I'd give NVidia a try this time around. So far, so good!

Random reboots

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card  ( 11201-00-20G)
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card ( 11201-00-20G)

Pros: Excellent value, delivers solid frame rates in most games w/o having to sacrifice graphics detail. Low power consumption.

Cons: Very unstable. I bought this card for my wife and she will encounter either "VPU Recovery" warnings or random reboots every few hours. It seems to happen in waves, where the first one triggers several more that follow within minutes. I have changed the mobo, power supply, and case but nothing helps.

Overall Review: I had previously purchased the HSI equivalent and it had the same issues so I'm beginning to suspect it is something with the 7770 design, or possibly even the specific production run since they were purchased around the same time.

Cheap, painless

SABRENT USB-SND8 8-Channel 3D USB 2.0 External 7.1 Surround Sound Box w/Digital Output
SABRENT USB-SND8 8-Channel 3D USB 2.0 External 7.1 Surround Sound Box w/Digital Output

Pros: Installed quickly on XP. Includes common controls on the unit itself (volume up/down, play mute, record mute), plus indicator lights for mute functions. Has some entertaining effects you can apply to the microphone.

Cons: No instructions included. Provided software is from the chipset OEM and not Sabrent. I've heard that support is non-existent for this product, so return ASAP it if it doesn't work for you.

Overall Review: Although XP has a native driver for this device, I found that the microphone didn't work reliably with some games until I installed the provided software + driver.