Joined on 02/11/02
Excellent value
Pros: Surprisingly compact little card, I was surprised. One of the less expensive cards with a decent 'back exhaust' cooler, a must for MATX builds. Since the card went into my parent's new computer, it's not going to get a huge amount of load placed on it, but it seemed to perform well in the few tests I ran.
Cons: Onboard fan 'seeks' up and down in RPM for some reason before the OS loads. Once the OS loads, it settles down to an inaudiable level. At full tilts, though, it's quite noticable. Louder than my SLI'd 285GTXs, so make sure you have good case ventilation.
Overall Review: ATI drivers. WTH. At one point they seemed to be getting better, but ever since AMD bought them out... confusing interface and badly labeled properties. They seem stable enough, though, so I suppose that's all that matters.
Seems well made, but...
Pros: Holds a 120mm fan in the front of my case with a filter! Spiffy, and with their anti-vibration 4x 3.5" hard drive mount that fits right behind it, I'm golden for 8 hard disks.
Cons: The filter. Seriously, it can't be cleaned without disassembling the entire unit. Better to have left it out. Also there are some -serious- gaps around this unit when mounted in the case. Like an 1/8th of an inch. Considering how sturdy and well assembled the unit is, I can't believe they overlooked the width of a 5.25" bay. And the fan is junk, unfortunately so is the one I bought to replace it...
Overall Review: Still, nothing that can't be taken care of with a little elbow grease. It'd get 5 stars, but I have a hard time giving 5 stars since they didn't measure twice before cutting the sheet metal.
Another homerun
Pros: Works great! After running a H100 in my old computer, I knew I wanted to have another unit in my new one. I didn't want Corsair Link, and wanted PWM fans, so this one fit the bill. This keeps my 3770k nice and cool. Plus, the colored ring on the pump matches the heatsinks on the Z78 Gryphon motherboard, so it looks awesome! I also like that the fans don't plug into the pump and can instead be controlled via a fanbus or the motherboard headers themselves. Followup: 6 years old and still going strong! Computer has been at 4.2Ghz since built and is pretty much on 24/7. I've had zero leaks or issues with this unit other than the fans have gotten louder as they wore in.
Cons: Stock fans are a bit on the loud side, also, the radiator is a bit thicker than the other corsair units. I was unable to mount mine in the top of my Corsair 350D case, but it went into the front just fine. Probably better there, anyway. I do get some pump noise, though, at startup. Since the pump is higher than the radiator, it seems small air bubbles are collecting there when it's powered off. The noise goes away after a few seconds.
Overall Review: Running mine in push/pull with 4 Corsair SP120 Silent fans. These are much quieter than the stock fans, and with 4 of them, I get better than stock cooling out of it. My i7 3770k is idling at around 31-2C, and under full load maxes around 60C. Gaming typically only heats it up to 42C or so.
Love this case
Pros: There is a lot of room in this case, considering it's a MATX tower. A Corsair H105 cooler in push/pull actually fits with no difficulty on the front, once you remove the extra drive bays, and has plenty of clearance for long video cards.
Cons: Kinda big for a MATX, so if your looking for a small tower, this isn't it. It's about the same size as a small ATX tower.
Overall Review: I'm a big fan of this case. The built in air filters work perfectly and are easy to clean, the front LEDs for power and HDD activity aren't blindingly bright, and I was able to fit a considerable amount of kit in it without difficulty.
Skip the Titan
Pros: Wow this thing is fast! Quiet, too! Built like a tank as well, which is impressive. I was happy to notice, once I opened it, that the colors on the shroud matched those on the Gryphon Z78 board and my H105 cooler. Spiffy! Seriously, this thing is fast. Very close to Titan speeds at about half the price. Take that money and buy a nice SSD!
Cons: I'm a little concerned about the weight of the thing. This is a big pig! So far it doesn't seem to be an issue, supposedly there is a reinforcement plate under the heatsink. The board seems quite rigid, so hopefully there won't be any weight-related problems. I can't think of any other cons. It's pretty awesome.
Overall Review: Seriously, skip the Titan, buy this. With a little further OCing, you can match the Titan in just about everything and save a ton of cash.
Performance AND good looks
Pros: Very solid and well built board, I'm quite happy with it. The BIOS took a little getting used too, but it's pretty easy to use as well. Setup consisted of pretty much just plugging things in and turning it on. Also, the color of the heatsinks matches the color of the ring on my Corsair H105 pump, which is awesome. Port placement seems to be pretty good, and there are a lot of fan connectors. Stability, so far, seems excellent. There appears to be a large array of OC options, but I haven't really played with them yet.
Cons: Didn't recognize my Samsung 840 EVO at first, had to dig into the BIOS to enable it as a bootable option. It's got 2 PWM ports for the CPU, one labled 'CPU' and one labeled 'CPU Opt'. Both are monitored separately, but their PWM speed control is unified. Only a mild annoyance, though. Price is a little higher than it's competitors. The TUF armor has to be purchased separately and cannot be installed with the board in the computer. That said, I didn't want it, so I'm fine with that.
Overall Review: Hey, it's an Asus board, you end up paying for that. That said, even though it's a bit more than other boards with similar features, I don't regret the purchase. Asus boards tend to be consistently stable, and I'll pay extra to know my system is going to run for years.
Blatant misrepresentation
I ordered two Symna S032G helicopters from Sunvalley via the Marketplace. While I received my order quickly, it's not even -close- to two Symna S032G helicopters. Instead of an RF transmitter, it's IR. In fact, the helicopters are closer to the much-smaller Symna S107. To make it worse, they aren't even Symna, but a cheap Chinese Knockoff of an already cheap toy! Apparently I'm not the first one they've done this too. Horrible, blatant misrepresentation of their items. Hopefully they'll rectify it, but now I have to scramble to figure out what I'm doing for Christmas.