Pros: This cost me $95 and it's an excellent value. Has all the bells and whistles I need for my build. Biostar hasn't done me wrong yet, either. I like the color scheme. Booted up with 8gb DDR3 1600 Crucial Ballistix BL2KIT51264RF160A and was no hassle. Haven't tried overclocking yet, but I have overclocked with Biostar in the past. Ultimately, I'm very pleased with the Mobo. It has what I need and looks good.

Cons: Placement of the SATA connectors. If there's one reason to spend a little more money, it's to have the connectors at a right angle on the side of the mobo instead of the face. There's a good chance that something you install on your mobo will go over the sata connections, so you'll want to connect your sata cables first. For me, the placement of the 2 sata 6gb/s connections are the worst. I can't use a straight-to-straight cable on them, because I installed a Lian Li BS08 (2x 120mm dual slot PCI cooler). Obviously, that won't affect everyone. I put a right-angle sata cable there, in case I need it later. To a lesser extent, same goes for the 24pin connector. I have bottom mount PSU and to utilize the around-the-back connections, had to get a 24-pin extension, unlike with a different motherboard. It's okay though, because the extension I got looks a lot cooler and matches the motherboard.

Overall Review: I'm a single GPU person (currently using a GTX 560). Micro-stuttering is a problem that still prevails in even the latest dual-GPU set-up. (See micro-stuttering at Tom's Hardware.)

Pros: Small and fit into an InWin Diva case fine, with an i3-2100 (stock fan), and full-size DVD burner. CPU Socket. Can handle games like Skyrim great.

Cons: Uses laptop memory. Not really a huge con, but something to look out for.

Overall Review: This is part of a build I made for Christmas. She's been enjoying Skyrim on it ever since. It'll handle any decent game she cares to throw at it, but she's mostly just been playing Skyrim. Might have trouble with certain Crytek FPS games that are bloated with tessellation. I just hope I can continue to find upgrades that fit into that tiny case in the future. My guess is, I will.

Pros: The OEM for the Mk IIIs is Seasonic. Modular. 80plus

Cons: n/a

Overall Review: Check the PSU review database at RealHardTechX and see for yourself. This PSU (like the other Mk IIIs) is made by Seasonic, possibly the most reliably PSU maker out there. (The older plain, non-Mk silencer series PSUs are also Seasonic) I have an Mk II which is made by Sirtec and is not genuine 80plus, and isn't modular. It seems to be holding up fine and I haven't had any issues yet, plus you can't beat the 7 year warranty. Nonetheless, I wish I had an Mk III instead.

Pros: Crucial Brand Red PCB Red low-profile heatspreaders (they aren't even a hair taller than the PCB, and are open on top to allow more air flow, I suppose). Works in my BIOSTAR TZ68A+ - didn't have to adjust anything in BIOs. No hassle.

Cons: None yet. Just upgraded my system's main components and have no immediate plans to overclock.

Overall Review: Big, obnoxious rip-jaw-esque heatspreaders aren't very useful, and they tend to get in the way of my CPU cooler (currently using an Eclipse Gemini with dual 120mm fans). I think these look pretty snazzy, but my main concern was that they were Crucial. Have had bad luck with Kingston DDR2, in the past. Currently using Crucial in my netbook as well, and have zero problems.

Pros: GTX 560 for $180. Red PCB. The frog is for good luck, (per Palit), so that makes this the luckiest brand.

Cons: Stock cooling insufficient. Ran OCCT GPU tester and couldn't complete it due to temps in excess of 85c (too much for my tastes).

Overall Review: Already planned to add my own cooling when I got it. Here's what worked for me. Most of these parts I already had. Good thing they carry over to my new GPU fine. - heatspreaders for vram and vrm. - Accelero S1 Rev2 Passive VGA Cooler ($30. Had to use pliers on the bracket a little for it to work with the short screws.) - Ultra Kaze 3000 rpm - pulling air in the front of the case. With some things put in to help direct the air directly to the heatsink. - Lian Li BS08 dual-pci slot cooler w/2x scythe slipstream 1900 rpms (pulling air from heatsink). Able to run several OCCT GPU punishment sessions with no errors and it never got over 71c. There are better passive coolers out there, but they cost a lot more.

Pros: The benchmarks don't lie. This is the best CPU out of the box for gaming right now. It also performs excellently in other tasks, only falling behind the high-priced Intel six-cores in certain applications.

Cons: About $100 than the i5-2500k. Not the greatest bang for your buck. I felt comfortable spending about $300 for the best CPU though, so it didn't break my bank. That's how much my 3ghz Athlon 64 X2 cost, back in the day.

Overall Review: I don't think I'm the only one who bought this instead of the FX 8150 when benchmarks came out and revealed the truth about the 'bulldozer' cpus. From a consumer standpoint, I would like to see AMD and Intel leap-frogging each other again, for some healthy competition but that's simply not the case right now.