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Mark W.

Mark W.

Joined on 02/01/10

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Great Case

Cooler Master Elite 360 RC-360-KKR1 Black Plastic (front bezel), SECC (case body) ATX Mid Tower Computer Case Thermal Master 350w Power Supply
Cooler Master Elite 360 RC-360-KKR1 Black Plastic (front bezel), SECC (case body) ATX Mid Tower Computer Case Thermal Master 350w Power Supply

Pros: I can't get over how compact this case is, yet it accepts a full-size ATX motherboard and all the standard peripherals. It looks great, much better than in the pictures. Very comparable in size to some of the smaller cases made by major OEM's. The black color matched all my components perfectly.

Cons: Black plastic drive "trays" are kind of cheap. I would prefer screws over tool-less designs. I found the FDD holder would not accommodate my card reader, so had to drill a hole in the plastic to match the screw holes in the card reader.

Overall Review: The power supply location and limited drive bays make for a very compact case- I love it and plan to use it for most of my builds. The power supply seems decently constructed, though it is only 350W. It powers my overclocked Pentium Dual Core, 4gb RAM, and the standard peripherals without a problem. It seems to have adequate ventilation out the front of the case. Fantastic if you plan to stick this in a tight space.

Great Drive

Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721032CLA362 (0A39264) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Hitachi GST Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721032CLA362 (0A39264) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Super quiet, decent performance, solid reliability.

Cons: It is what it is, a budget drive. It feels cheap, like they skimped on the materials used... But that isn't unusual for this segment, even from other manufacturers.

Overall Review: Installed it, fired the system up, and it worked like a champ. Drive is very quiet, even with the case open which is a bonus.

Great RAM

PQI POWER Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model MAD44GUOE-X2
PQI POWER Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model MAD44GUOE-X2

Pros: Decent value RAM. Does what it's supposed to do, and overclocks a bit. I was able to get it to run about DDR2-900 before it gave up.

Cons: None considering it's budget RAM.

Overall Review: No complaints.

Great Value Board

ASRock G41M-GS LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
ASRock G41M-GS LGA 775 Intel G41 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Has everything you need for a decent system. Overclocking options are plentiful. Rock solid stability and decent performance for a value oriented Socket 775 platform.

Cons: 1997 called and wants their jumpers back... This board still uses them to select the RAM:FSB ratio, along with default FSB. Can't find much wrong with this board. Doesn't use all solid caps, only two RAM slots.. Can't really complain about these things having known it before purchasing, and it being a budget board.

Overall Review: O/Ced a E5200 2.5ghz to 3.33ghz (333 x 10) with minimal effort. Took a minute to realize I had to change the jumpers to run 333 fsb with DDR-800 RAM, otherwise the RAM divider wouldn't change. Great board for a rock solid, fast system on the cheap.