Joined on 04/27/09
Bought. Worked. Good buy.
Pros: bought for my friend, great looking/working card. This card runs 2 FPS slower than an NVidia Geforce 9500 gt in: Call of duty: Modern Warfare -1280x1024 -4xAA -all settings on/Highest ATI card scored 34.22 fps average, NVidia scored 36.27 fps average this card is also half the price, so in price/performance ratios, ATI's always place first. good card, recomended to any casual-high demanding gamer.
Cons: small fan, does run a little hot after 5+ hrs of continuous gaming (65-75 celsius at most) but not extremely bad. i did overclock it 35mhz core and 85 mhz memory. that wasnt the max, thats just how much i wanted to OC it to.
Overall Review: recomended for anyone that needs a cheap but powerful card.
Cool (no pun intended)
Pros: Keeps my unlocked and overclocked processor cool. I am sitting at 3.8ghz on a phenom 2 x2 550 BE cpu, unlocked to 4 cores, idling at 32-40 celsius and 49-56 celsius at load. The stock cooler, at 3.5 ghz and 4 cores, it was idling at 48-55 celsius and 65-75 celsius on load. those temperatures were unacceptable. The fan itself never goes to %100, and on load, I had the fan running at %70. The fan is very quiet, and has no problem blowing heat away from the heatsink.
Cons: Maybe a little big for smaller cases, also the aluminum fins are sharp. A solid copper base would be preffered, rather than the copper plate on the bottom.
Overall Review: This CPU cooler is so completely under-estimated. I was able to lower my load temperatures by about 15-25 celsius, as well as overlocking even further. For $23.30, there is no reason to buy a $50+ cpu cooler, because this thing outperforms a lot of them. This has to be the best "bang for the buck" cpu cooler on the market now, and i definitely recomend it.
It's Gigabyte.
Pros: This motherboard is awesome. The features on this board never stop, considering its only 80 bucks. the difference between this board and a 780g/785g board is onboard video and some other small features. the difference between this board and the 790gx/fx boards is raid 5 support, onboard video, and crossfireX support, as well as a few minor features. if you are going to be running a single video card, and maybe even if you want to unlock the phenom 2 x2 550 or x3 720, this board will not dissappoint.
Cons: one of the motherboard holes didnt line up with any hole in my case, but thats not a big issue, seeing as its running ok! No onboard video! might be bad if your card goes bad and you dont have a backup. No raid5 support. not a huge issue, does anyone even use raid 5? lol
Overall Review: I have a phenom 2 x2 550 running @ 3.5ghz and unlocked to a quad running 45-62 celsuis. getting a new heatsink, the evercool buffalo to be exact. its 15.99 her on newegg and its a solid performer, look it up on frostytech, its got great reviews. This board is a very stable board, and for 80 bucks, you cant go wrong. And knowing it's a Gigabyte seals the deal
Great
Pros: Great ram! for under 70 bucks, this 4gb kit is awesome. I am running at 1333mhz and 6-6-6-20 timings, just like it said, running very stable.
Cons: It's only 1333 mhz, which is still really fast, just 1600mhz would be preffered.
Overall Review: for 70 bucks this kit is really great
Unbelievable
Pros: This is a PHENOMinal processor! But seriously, it really is. for 100 dollars, you can't go wrong with the phenom 2 x2 550. This thing is known to get 4ghz+ on minor voltage increases, and more importantly, it is well known to unlock to a quad core more often than not. see other thoughts
Cons: It is well known that AMD processors simply dont crunch numbers as fast as intel's. That means, that if you are building a workstation or encoding/decoding machine, you might want to take a loog at the i7's or i5's. of course, you will spend more though. -Stock cooler is complete garbage
Overall Review: I am currently running this thing in a gigabyte ma-770t-ud3p motherboard with 4gb of crucial ddr3 1333 at 6-6-6-20. It's running at 3.5ghz and unlocked to a quad running at 45 celsuius idle at 62 load. The temps are pushing it, but thats awesome that its running 100% stable. This thing sees no boundaries, it barrels through any task i want to to. i even selected all of my icons on my desktop and clicked "open", just for fun, to see everything open up at the same time with no hitches. its kinda nice to be able to have 3 games open, downloading music from limewire, defragging your hard drive, all at the same time. awesome. I DID order an evercool buffalo 100mm heatsink because of the nasty temps this thing has when unlocked and overclocked. The stock heatsink really is horrible. and for 15 bucks plus shipping here on newegg, the evercool buffalo is a steal. look it up on frostytech if you are interested in it, its a VERY good heatsink/fan.
Logitech G5
Pros: this mouse is simply amazing. Crystal Clear tracking on almost any surface, adjustable dpi settings on the fly, 2 extra buttons, not counting that the mouse wheel tilts, and just g5 Godliness. become one of the G5 community, you will be glad you did
Cons: the mouse wheel is pretty gosh darn stiff to click down, maybe its just mine, but boy is it tough to click down. the chord is a tiny bit stiff, but after a few days of gaming and some backwards bending it should even out fine. The weights dont prove to be a HUGE difference, but they do help give the mouse a good quality heaviness to it. ive allways liked really heavy computer parts, especially with PSU's, like my corsair. its just so much heavier than a rosewill or ocz, its just a sign of good quality parts.
Overall Review: I was deciding between this and the razer deathadder. since im more of a fingertips gamer, this mouse was better off for my hand positioning. im glad i got this, because my friend got the deathadder, and i hate it. haha. but, this is an exceptional mouse, the best gaming mouse for under 75 dollars, by far. then the g9 *might* pas it up in dpi and accessories, but i like the feel of the g5 over the g9 by far.