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CASEY M.

CASEY M.

Joined on 03/28/01

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 14
Most Favorable Review

One of the best GTX 460 cards available

MSI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC
MSI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N460GTX CYCLONE 1GD5/OC

Pros: Great card. The cooler does a great job at keeping temps low. It is very quiet but it does get louder as temps rise, like while gaming. Of course you won't be able to hear it while gaming so it is a non issue. You can create custom fan profiles to reduce the noise if it bothers you. With the fan set to 100% temps stay under 60c while running furmark. That is incredible for that program. While gaming temps stay in the 50's using the stock fan profile. They overclock very well. Most people are able to hit over 900mhz by upping the voltage. I've hit as high as 850mhz without rasing the voltage. I run them at 800mhz or just the stock 725mhz since I am using two of them in sli. I am only using a single 1080p monitor so stock speeds in sli are more than fast enough for every current game I play. In fact one card is more than fast enough for most games at 1080p.

Cons: If you plan on using these for a SLI setup I recommend you space them out. In a side by side setup the top card will run much hotter, @30c hotter, than the lower card. I have an Antec 902 which has excellent airflow. With 2 of these side by side on an EVGA X58 758 the top card was hitting 90c while running Furmark! With the second card installed in the lower slot the temps now stay at @60c for both cards while running furmark. I wanted to use the side by side slots because they are both 16x on the 758. The lower slot is 8x. Luckily a 16x/8x sli setup doesn't hurt performance at all. There might be better cooler designs available for a side by side setup. Of course any design will run cooler if you space the cards apart.

Overall Review: If you plan on using these for SLI I recommend spacing them apart. Temps are still safe with them side by side but the top card will run very warm. Space them out and they will both stay very cool. Of course your case needs to have good airflow since this cooler design does not exhaust outside of the case. Each card will draw @150-180 watts. For a single card setup you will need a @450 watt PS. For an SLI setup you will need @600 watts. Of course you need 2 pci e 6 pin connectors. The card comes with adapters for molex. You need 4 molex for 2 pci e 6 pin plugs.

10/30/2010
Most Critical Review

Worked well for almost 3 years...

XFX Black Edition XPS-850W-BES 850 W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
XFX Black Edition XPS-850W-BES 850 W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: It worked well while it lasted.

Cons: It randomly died today. It just makes a single click when I try to power on. I jumped the green and a ground it does the same thing.

Overall Review: I contacted XFX and they are going to replace it under warranty for me. So my computer is going to be down for a couple of weeks. I wish it wouldn't have failed but it happens.

Probably the best 2400 mhz 2x8gb ram on the market for Haswell

G.SKILL TridentX Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model F3-2400C10D-16GTX
G.SKILL TridentX Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model F3-2400C10D-16GTX

Pros: I did a lot of research before I bought this kit. Basically every review I could find on this set was positive. Runs at advertised speeds and timings simply by selecting XMP profile 1 and setting the voltage to 1.65 volts. Yes, 1.65 volts is safe with Haswell. I ran 20 passes of LinX and ran Memtest overnight without any errors. I am using a Gigabyte Z97X UD5H motherboard and I7 4790k with all cores boosting to 4.4 at 1.10 volts. YMMV with a different setup.

Cons: Yes the ram is tall but it still fits under my Kingston ram cooler. I know a ram cooler isn't necessary but I already had it and I am using a H60 so there isn't much air moving over the ram. I figure the cooler can't hurt and it looks good in my case. If the ram is too tall for your setup the top cooling fin is easily removable.

High quality fan but I don't know what all the hype is about

COUGAR Vortex PWM 120mm (CF-V12HPB) Cooling Fan with Hydro-Dynamic Bearing and Pulse Width Modulation (Black Version)
COUGAR Vortex PWM 120mm (CF-V12HPB) Cooling Fan with Hydro-Dynamic Bearing and Pulse Width Modulation (Black Version)

Pros: I ordered two of these to try out because I've been reading all the hype about them. They were on sale for $8 a piece so I ordered them. I installed them on a H60 that I was previously using 2 Coolermaster Blademaster fans with. I had a 212+ prior to the H60 so I just installed the fans from that on the H60. The Blademaster fans are very similar in specs and looks to the stock Corsair H60 fan. I am using an i7 950 overclocked to 4.0 ghz drawing @1.45 volts according to Eleet. I ran 5 passes of Linx to check for the highest individual core temp with the fans set to 100%. The room was kept at 72F for both tests. The Blademaster fans had the highest core temp reading of 82c and Eleet reported them running at @1950 rpms. The Cougar fans had the highest core temp reading of 85c and Eleet reported them running at @1650 rpms. I used Realtemp to monitor temps.

Cons: I don't really have anything bad to say about them just that I still don't see what all the hype is about. They cool about as well as expected based on their max rpms. They don't break the laws of physics.

Overall Review: They are high quality, fairly quiet fans. I didn't test the Blademaster fans at the same rpms as the Cougars but I imagine if I had they would sound and cool about the same.

Excellent case but very careful with the hard drive screws!

Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: The case itself is excellent. It has excellent airflow, is quiet with the fans on low/medium, and looks great. I received a newer version than what is pictured. The one I have has a cut out for the rear of the cpu socket. Unfortunately the cut out is higher than it should be. So using a back plate for a cpu heatsink would still require removing the motherboard. I am using an EVGA X58 SLI mobo. I don't know if the cutout would work work better with other platfroms.

Cons: The only complaint I have is the quality of the screws that hold the hard drives in place. There are two removable hard drive cages that each hold three hard drives, one 120mm fan and the filter. The cage is held in place by 8 thumb screws, four on each side. Those thumb screws are fine. The screws that hold the hard drives in the cages are horrible! They are long screws not normal hard drive screws. The problem with them is they are made from extremely soft metal. They strip easily. I have a high quality screwdriver set and none of them work without damaging the screws. The problem is not with my tools but rather the screws themselves. One striped so badly I couldn't get it out even with an easy out stripped screw removal tool. All the easy out did was eat the screw. Thats how soft the metal is! I had to enlarge the area around the screw hole large enough to grip the screw shaft with a pair of vice grips. Now the cage looks horrible but you can't see it installed in the case.

Overall Review: I wasted over an hour removing that one stripped screw. Luckily the damage done to the cage isn't noticeable once the cage is installed in the case. Maybe I just got a bad batch of screws but I think Antec should look into it. I would actually prefer a "no tools required" hard drive enclosure but I can live with this design if the screws were of normal quality.

Great coole for just about every current cpu.

COOLER MASTER RR-CCH-L9U1-GP 92mm Hyper TX2 CPU Cooler
COOLER MASTER RR-CCH-L9U1-GP 92mm Hyper TX2 CPU Cooler

Pros: This a great cooler for the money. I just installed it on my friends FX-64 that was overheating with the stock cooler. I ran Prime for over an hour after installing this cooler and the temp never went above 45c.

Cons: None that I can think of.

Overall Review: This thing is cheap, easy to install, quiet, and it cools well. What more could you ask for.