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Gino C.

Gino C.

Joined on 10/30/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 3
Most Favorable Review

Definitely a great case

Fractal Design Define R4 with Window Arctic White Silent ATX Mid Tower Case
Fractal Design Define R4 with Window Arctic White Silent ATX Mid Tower Case

Pros: wire management is fantastic with tons of room. HDD mounting is clean and simple. Air fiters everywhere. Tons of room for more fans if you need them. Looks great in white. And great price also. I purchased this to build a new office machine. I bench tested the whole setup for a 3 day burn in and I think with interruptions I had the whole thing assembled in the case with a DVD burner, 2 HDD and 1 SSD in under 2 hours. Slide out trays for HDD are great and have screw holes for an SSD with no adapter as well. Super easy, very clean wiring with even a non-modular supply (room to hide extra wires. Access panel for the CPU heat sink on the back. All the features of a high end case with a low price. If you wanted to add lighting etc, plenty of room for that as well. My personal computers are all water cooled but this is a great air cooling case. No issues installing the monster COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO.

Cons: Two LED's would be nicer but that's about it. A power LED is sort of irrelevant since you pretty much know it is "on"

Overall Review: Someone earlier said there is no HDD LED- which is "partly" true. If you read the manual it says you can attach the power LED to the HDD on the MB and use it that way. But the truth is there is still only one indicator LED

11/26/2012

Great board BUT....

ASRock Z77 OC Formula LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard
ASRock Z77 OC Formula LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: This board benchmarks higher than a lot of more expensive ones from both ASRock and other manufacturers. Instantly loads up memory XMP profile for zero efforts clocks (choose from approved vendor list) Great BIOS with simple and advanced overclocks

Cons: Now the BUT... it says the additional molex power connector for SLI is "optional" but my board would not boot without it.... then next issue is it is a BIG board and there was no way to connect the molex connector with the power supply in a mid size Soprano case. If they even made a right angle connector I still doubt there would be room. I have approx 1/4" of space from the bottom of the board to the power supply. I don't think this is worth losing an egg over but it should be noted/mentioned somewhere maybe?? Now I have a case that is too expensive to return and a board that won't fit. So don't make my mistake- get a big case or verify clearances

LAyer break is an issue with ALL DL Media

RiDATA 8.5GB 2.4X DVD+R DL White Inkjet Printable 25 Packs Spindle Dual Layer Disc Model DRD+85-RDIW-CB25
RiDATA 8.5GB 2.4X DVD+R DL White Inkjet Printable 25 Packs Spindle Dual Layer Disc Model DRD+85-RDIW-CB25

Pros: I bought 100 of these and have had no quality control problems-If you research layer breaks you will see ALOT of commercial DVD players have an issue. The burn/image process is CRITICAL. Slysoft CloneDVD is the most idiot proof method.DVD Decryptor(ISO mode usually preserves it) and Nero mangle the layer break and alot of players lose tracking at this point.

Cons: If you want to be more technical use ImgBurn with PGCEdit (google these for instructions) You can then MANUALLY set your layer break. I am using a new LG LDA-511 with HDMI and Upconvert for 720 and 1080 HDTV output from DVDs. It works flawlessly.

Overall Review: I had a Toshiba before and I THOUGHT I was making coasters, but it was the player that just didn't like back-ups. I have a standard Pioneer as well that works fine. Some NEW discs have layer 1 SMALLER than layer 2-effective copy protection since WINDOWS see this as big error and moves the break.