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John L.

John L.

Joined on 07/12/10

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 8
Most Favorable Review

Great Graphics Card

ASUS Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card EAH6850 DirectCU/2DIS/1GD5
ASUS Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card EAH6850 DirectCU/2DIS/1GD5

Pros: Thank you for the Catalyst 10.12 update, this card was utterly useless before that. But now, I have it OCd to 950MHz Core/1220MHz Memory using MSI Afterburner after I adjusted the voltage to ~1.21V using ASUS Smart Doctor (which is really just badly made, or it could be much more useful). Whoever designed the layout for ASUS Smart Doctor should be released. Great card though, I wonder what it could do if I replaced the thermal compound with some Shin-etsu or something else. At 1080p: Plays Crysis at High Settings Starcraft II at Ultra Mass Effect II - High Before the driver update, none of these would play past the first 5 minutes w/o crashing.

Cons: Horrible driver support when they launched it. No wonder I got it for so much less (hence no -1 egg)

Overall Review: ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (4.05 GHz OC) Antec TP-750 Blue PSU ASUS EAH6850 Graphics Card 16GB G.Skill DDR3 1600MHz RAM Lite-On BD Player ASUS Super Multi Combo Writer Zalman CPS10X cpu HSF 6TB Storage Onkyo HD Surround 47" LCD

12/20/2010

Works pretty good. Some issues

ASUS USB-BT211 Mini Bluetooth Dongle
ASUS USB-BT211 Mini Bluetooth Dongle

Pros: Range is excellent, works 10x better than the Iogear GBU421 (piece of cr&p). It's not very noticeable on the front of my case.

Cons: Every once in awhile I have to pull it out and plug it back in to get it to respond to my Razer Orochi. Only about once a week, though. And considering how often there are problems with getting BT dongles to work correctly, that's not bad. And is the only reason I subtracted an egg.

Overall Review: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 MOBO Win 7 Ult x64 Had no problems with installation, just make sure you do it right the first time, by using installation disc/drivers. Don't rely on it automatically loading the drivers by just plug-n-play. This works for some people, but more often than naught, it will screw it up and you will have to go into device manager settings and uninstall everything.

Works great so far

ASUS PCE-N13 Wireless Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI Express 150/300Mbps Transfer/Receive Rate 64-bit/128-bit WEP, TKIP, and AES WI-Fi alliance WPA, WPA2
ASUS PCE-N13 Wireless Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI Express 150/300Mbps Transfer/Receive Rate 64-bit/128-bit WEP, TKIP, and AES WI-Fi alliance WPA, WPA2

Pros: Ran the driver install, and plugged it in, works great. Gets a full signal, but I am only about 25 feet away with a couple walls in between. I can't say how far away it works, but I would think it could work downstairs as well.

Cons: I suppose it could use an extension for the antennae, but it is working fine without them at the moment.

Overall Review: Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate ASUS M4A89TD Pro/USB3 AMD Phenom II X6 1090T

Excellent mouse, except for one thing

Microsoft Arc Mouse - Black
Microsoft Arc Mouse - Black

Pros: This was and continues to be a great mouse. I've had it for over 3 years, the battery life is fantastic; takes 2 AAAs and lasts for... at least a month on that. That being said...

Cons: Sometimes it will get stuck and I have to blow at the laser aperture to get it going again. Also, the third button on the left side of the mouse is just much too far forward to be of any use in any comfortable position unless you are directly above your mouse while using it. It doesn't have much range over 18 feet or so, depending on barricades. It doesn't feel incredibly accurate, but it feels good enough for what it is which...

Overall Review: ..is a really compact wireless laser mouse that you can stick a tiny usb fob into itself and then fold it in half and put into a tiny suede bag with a magnetic flap. So it's not the best mouse, but mine has put up with a fair amount of abuse for 3 years and i've never had a single problem with its hardware crapping out. Guess I'm just lucky. I'm using it with Win 7 Ult x64 on an ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 and an AMD x6 1090t

12/23/2010

very good processor

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T - Phenom II X6 Thuban 6-Core 2.8 GHz Socket AM3 125W Desktop Processor - HDT55TFBGRBOX
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T - Phenom II X6 Thuban 6-Core 2.8 GHz Socket AM3 125W Desktop Processor - HDT55TFBGRBOX

Pros: Don't let 'so what' keep you away from this processor. As if the benchmark's on tomshardware.com aren't reliable. What an intel fanboy. I have this CPU OCd using the stock HSF to 3.7GHz (CPU idle @ 44C; Cores idle @ 33-34C) just using the TurboV app from my 880G mobo. I've put my whole rig together for ~$500 and it's ridiculously powerful. I run programs that use a lot of processing power like MATLAB, Mathematica and other research apps all while listening to music, running torrents, and multiple windows in chrome, as well as running some video conversion at the same time and I haven't run into any problems. I'm planning on upping the OC once I put in a liquid cooler, probably the Corsair H50 or H70. Just trying to figure out if I really NEED to.

Cons: none, except that i just have to wait for more programs that can take advantage of this CPU's multiple cores.

Overall Review: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (OCd 3.GHz) ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 NZXT Hades Case WD Caviar Green 1.5TB HDD WD Caviar SE 120GB HDD Maxtor Diamond Max 10 300GB HDD 4GB OCZ Special Ops Edition 1600MHz DDR3 Ram ASUS DRW24B1ST Combo Drive Antec Neo Eco 620c (Seasonic rebadge) PSU Onkyo HT-S6300 1200W 7.1 HD Surround System Philips 47" 1080p LCD HDTV Do i NEED all this? no. Is it way cool? yes.

excellent dvd writer

ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS
ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS

Pros: Works as it should, haven't had any issues so far. ASUS seems to provide excellent driver support. I have one of these in my build, and another in one that I built for a friend. Good deal for under $20.

Cons: none that I've noticed

Overall Review: NZXT Hades Case AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (OCd to 3.7GHz) WD Caviar Green 5900RPM 1.5TB WD Caviar SE 7200RPM 120GB Maxtor Diamond Max 10 7200RPM 300GB ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 OCZ SOE 1600MHz DDR3 Ram ASUS DRW-24B1ST DVD/CD Burner Antec Neo Eco 620c 80Plus PSU Onkyo HT-S6300 1200W 7.1 HD Surround System Philips 47" 1080p LCD HDTV Win7 Ultimate 64-bit