Joined on 08/29/02
Overclockable ATI monster
Pros: It's Sapphire so it overclocks very well. 650/800mhz from 500/600 is not too shabby. Plays everything in sight (so far) at 1280x1024 with at least 2xAA on max details.
Cons: Fan in stock form very audible, use Riva Tuner to calm it down or just update the BIOS from Sapphire.
Overall Review: BIOS at Sapphire web site under Support/Drivers/x1950GT. Overclock with AtiTool 0.27 to recognize x1950GT. Under Settings/X1000 Overclocking check Driver Level Overclocking and no more crashes when adjusting memory frequency.
No Rebate
Pros: Rubber housing withstands the drops, activity light and quite compact
Cons: The rebate form says rebate offer code PAT-13493. That code does not exist, the rebate is non-existent. I'm out $10 rebate. Very upsetting, Patriot customer service has not gotten in touch with me.
Overall Review: I have other Patriot USB sticks and desktop memory. Never had any issues, this lack of advertised rebate is enough to sway me away from Patriot in the future.
Two week user review
Pros: The thing does not heat up, the fan never has spun up to an audible level. Start-up times are reasonably speedy and everything is snappy. First charge netted 7 hours and 30 minutes of use on medium brightness settings transfering and editing photos over wi-fi and burning a few discs. The second charge was actually 8 hours for web use and office productivity. Webcam works well in low light and the sound is loud enough for YouTube videos to be heard in the entire living room. Light weight and easily transportable with a 14" bright vivid screen.
Cons: Some bloatware, took about an hour to remove. Aluminum casing shows fingerprints more prominently than does painted plastic.
Overall Review: Truly a great laptop with a small power brick for easy portability. With a real-world 7 1/2 to 8 hour battery life, it's a great student laptop.
Great all-rounder
Pros: On-board video is quite the little workhorse. Comes with 64mb ram as sideport. You can set it to use some of your system ram up to 512mb. Heatsinks are just warm, does not add heat to your system. Very overclock friendly, everything can be adjusted. Phenoms get an extra 300-400mhz over other non SB750 chipsets.
Cons: No firewire, no eSATA, does not come with Crossfire bridge ( in case you've lost yours). 16x PCI Express Slot on bottom, 8X Slot on top.
Overall Review: Contrary to other "experienced" reviewers here, you CAN use the top PCI Express slot as your sole video card slot it will just run at 8x not 16x. No big deal, benched 9785pts @16x and 9735pts @8x. MSI 8800GT and 3Gig AMD X2 CPU.
Overclocked and still has a lot more room
Pros: The cooler on this MSI 8800GT is a treat to look at. It is indeed absolutely silent. It idles at 50C and loads at 62C tops. I've gotten just over 10500 points on 3dMark06 with a 3Gig AMD Dual-Core CPU. Crysis runs at about 30fps most of the time on High settings. (Shadows on Medium)
Cons: Does not seem to have any cons in my situation.
Overall Review: I have owned three of these, two in SLI and one all alone. My system is Biostar TA790GX motherboard, AMD X2 5400+ Black Edition, 4Gig Crucial, SB X-Fi ExtremeMusic, 500W Rosewill PS, Windows Vista Home Premium. All bought from Newegg.
Great for SD750
Pros: Just as the A-Data 4gb and 16gb cards I own, this 8gb card just excells. There are no buffer problems filming video with my Canon SD1000 or SD750. Stores a boat-load of pictures.
Cons: None detected