Pros: Massive performance improvement moving up from a heavily overclocked FX-8350. Much quieter, doesn't turn the room into a sauna if I run Folding@home, huge improvements in gameplay, what's not to like?
Cons: The stock cooler is a bit loud and needs two exhaust fans in close proximity to keep the temperatures down when fully loaded (video transcoding, Folding@home, etc.).
Overall Review: Solid performer from AMD, good value for the money.
Pros: Small enough to be easy to install in my case, lots of length to the cables to make routing easy, cables are mostly thin enough to be able to stuff them behind the motherboard tray with no issues. Provides plenty of power for 2 GPUs, a Ryzen 7 CPU, three mechanical hard drives, a couple SSDs, and enough fans to keep it all cool. Sometimes the fan even spins down when the hard drives go into power saving mode, making it even quieter.
Cons: The motherboard power cable is a bit thick and stiff, so tucking it out of the way can be a little challenging depending on the case.
Overall Review: Definitely a good buy for the money, even better if you can catch it on sale.
Pros: Roomy to work on inside, has enough space to tuck all the cabling behind the motherboard tray for better cable management, lots of room for drives. The bonus 5.25" to 3.5/2.5" adapter was an absolute plus for me. The cables for the top USB/Audio/Power switch were just long enough to keep out of the way. I have mine loaded up with two optical drives, three 3.5" hard drives, and an SSD, and the only cable in plain sight is the power cable for my video cards.
Cons: The metal is a bit thin, so you do have to be careful when popping out the expansion slot covers. The included fans are really cheap, so if you plan to put parts in that run warm, you will want to upgrade them ASAP. It turns my system with two GPUs and a Ryzen 7 3700X into an oven if I run Folding@Home.
Overall Review: It's definitely worth the money and if you have oversized hands like me, it's roomy enough to be able to reasonably work on. Just keep in mind that you will want to invest in more and better fans either at the time of purchase or soon after, and you have to be gentle with it setting up.
Pros: Easy to install (except for the retention screw), nice and fast, lots of room for Windows and assorted everyday use software. Yes, it's not the fastest drive on the market, but it is priced accordingly.
Cons: That stupid teeny little screw to hold it down, although that's the form factor so I'm not sure what the manufacturer could even do about that. Tough to place properly with my XL sized hands.
Overall Review: Given how much more you have to pay to go up to the next performance tier, this is definitely worth the money, especially if you can catch it on sale. Even moving from a SATA SSD drive, this feels a lot faster and more responsive.
Pros: Dropped in and just ran, no fuss, no muss, no bother. XMP profile worked just fine, and it is low profile memory so it should fit alongside nearly any CPU cooler, although it was a very tight fit with my water block given where the tubes attach. They seem to have resolved my random crash to desktop issues in some games (I'm looking at you Bethesda) and occasional blue screens.
Cons: Pretty much the slowest timings there are (11-11-11-28), and without any heat sinks, I wouldn't suggest overclocking/overvolting these. These aren't performance parts.
Overall Review: If your setup allows (like mine does), if you can point a side fan directly on these, it would probably be a good idea. I have no idea what their power consumption is like, but since they are low power with slow timings they shouldn't run too warm.
Pros: Plugged it in, restored from a Windows drive image, resized the partition and it's running like a champ. Zero usability issues with it after four months of pretty solid use.
Cons: When installing this drive, put it in front of a fan because it runs very hot. Even directly in front of an intake fan on my case, my SMART monitor software was still reading a drive temperature of nearly 60ºC when I was doing bulk data transfers to it.
Pros: Easy to install, most of the cabling you will need is included (only one SATA cable, 'tho), fairly firm, positive connections. Seems to be quite solidly constructed.
Cons: Only one SATA cable is included for a two port adapter...luckily I have a bag full of them, so not a show stopper for me. If you are buying one of these, make sure to have an extra SATA cable or two on hand.
Overall Review: The product works well, but the shipping is slow. Be advised that Canada Customs is also paying special attention to packages coming from China, so that really doesn't help the cause any.
Pros: Plug it in, load the driver, everything works. More than fast enough for mechanical hard drives (I just finished doing a drive to drive backup at over 120Mb/s).
Cons: I found the SATA connectors to be a bit loose with a not very reassuring fit.
Overall Review: I have this set up attached to an external eSATAp adapter so I can simply plug drives directly in without a separate power supply, and so far it is working beautifully.
Pros: Solid metal construction, a bit snug but reasonably easy to get into the drive bay. The cable is more than long enough to get to anywhere I want in my case without "creative" routing, and the cable connector seats very firmly into the motherboard connector. Fast transfer rates from SD/microSD cards (backing up my phone memory card at up to 35mb/sec). The USB connector is snug enough that it will hold devices/cables securely when in use.
Cons: The microSD slot is a bit loose, so you have to pay attention to make sure you put the card in squarely. If you don't disable USB power management in your power settings the card reader will power off, and I haven't seen how to turn it back on yet without rebooting. Other than that, I haven't hit any issues to report.
Pros: Links up my two NVidia GTX 960 cards (long story...) successfully for SLI.
Cons: None - it works.
Overall Review: No lights, no fancy graphics, no frills, but if all you need is a bridge to connect two NV cards together this works just fine.
Pros: Picked up all of my existing hardware, is SLI capable (which is why I purchased it), seems quite stable. If you are familiar with swapping or installing motherboards, this will present no challenges at all.
Cons: Will not change the multiplier on AM3 BE CPUs for some reason (or at least not on my Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition CPU).
Overall Review: A lot of people are nervous about refurbished units. I have yet to have any issues using refurb products unless there is an underlying issue with the model (a few old models of hard drives come to mind), but in that case you are going to hit the same problems with new or refurbished.
Pros: Switching from a sizable Zalman CNPS10X cooler, this dropped 12ºC off my max temperature using Prime95 for 30 minutes. It's very quiet in comparison to the fan setup I had before. So far, so good.
Cons: The hoses are a bit stiff, but if you have a roomy case, that shouldn't be an issue. The spring retention screws were a bit hard to get threaded, but other than that it was very easy.
Overall Review: Check the clearances on your computer case to make sure the radiator will fit...I didn't and had to do some quick and dirty case mods to get everything to go in (nothing a rasp and a few high speed steel drill bits couldn't handle).
Pros: Works as advertised, reads/writes 3.5" FDD disks, memory cards and has a front USB port, what more do you want?
Cons: Clearances a little tight (had a hard time getting it in the drive bay), seems lightly built.
Overall Review: This drive let me recover some archived files from some very old floppy disks after my old drive gave up the ghost. Having the integrated card readers and one extra front USB port is handy too.
Pros: Solidly made, lots of features, good compatibility
Cons: Sporadic BIOS and driver updates, sometimes erratic behaviour
Overall Review: I have this as the base for my system, with a Kingston SNV425 SSD drive as my boot volume and have had terrible issues with data corruption on the drive running Windows 7 64-bit. A partial solution that seems to work sometimes is to leave the system at the logon prompt and walk away for a while, but repeated reboots will slowly corrupt the drive. It appears to be a driver issue, but with slow driver releases I can't really tell.
Pros: It installs easily, came with software that worked with Win7 x64, and looks pretty.
Cons: After much frustration, I can only get this thing to read/burn DVD and CD discs. It will not recognize any Blu-ray discs that I've put into it. LG support...well, the live chat doesn't seem to be available for me and I'm still waiting for a response from their web support.
Overall Review: So far it appears I've purchased a very expensive DVD burner. My recommendation is to give this unit a pass and go with a retail drive from another brand.
Pros: Fast, cheap, easy to install
Cons: None that I've found
Overall Review: After reading the few negative reviews...honestly, people expect this CPU to make office faster somehow... I've thrown everything I could think of at this thing and have no reason to even think about overclocking it yet. So far everything is drive bound...and I'm running an SSD for a boot volume. If you use a good cooler (spend more than $15 people), it will run plenty cool maxed out. Just be sure to check the compatibility lists *AND* make sure to update your BIOS to the most recent revisions to make sure it will work before doing the upgrade, or buy a new, faster, more capable motherboard to go with this.
Pros: Works very well, lots in the bottle.
Cons: None that I've found
Overall Review: While the applicator is a little unorthodox (painting on the compound v.s. putting on a gob and spreading it), it works very well to make an even layer. I found if you let it sit for a few minutes before applying the heatsink it lets most of the brushmarks smooth out. Helps keep my Phenom II X4 965 BE at a maximum temperature of 44ºC (1 hour OCCT Linpack stress test) with a Zalman CNPS10X FLEX cooler and 2 Scythe GentleTyphoon D1225C12B4AP-14 120mm fans.
Pros: Nice roomy case, simple toolless drive bays that actually work, includes a decent front fan. Big enough for performance video cards, and deep enough for big CPU coolers. Lots of venting and fan options.
Cons: The air filter on the front may come in contact with the fan (or at least it did on mine). The control wires were definitely too short, which prevents me using the two top drive bays. There is a little too much in the way of venting, so it is difficult to engineer a good airflow path ('tho that's more of a peeve than a con).
Overall Review: I took a chance after reading some reviews about the control cables, and they are definitely too short. I'm going to be shopping for some extension cables so I can reclaim the top two drive bays. The plastic mounts for the front filter actually came in contact with the front fan, so they had to go completely.
Pros: Lots of available cables, one rail so no worries about power management, modular so you (mostly) only need to run the cables required for your particular setup. Quiet fan.
Cons: I agree that perhaps they should have made a couple more of the main cables modular instead so you can have *only* the cables you actually need.
Overall Review: For the price, this is an excellent PSU. It works well in a roomy case where you can tuck the unneeded fixed cables away (a zip tie helps here).
Pros: Coming from a conventional hard drive setup, it's fast, fast, fast. It's also silent, which is a bonus, and the included rails will also allow for mounting a second drive in the same 3.5" bay, although cabling might be a bit of a challenge depending on your cables and case.
Cons: Not as fast as some other drives.
Overall Review: While it's not as fast as some other drives, it's also much less expensive. It's a good compromise IMHO. Anything that lets me load Windows 7 in about 30 seconds is good by me.
Pros: The fan is quiet, moves lots of air, what more could you ask for?
Cons: The supports around the mounting holes makes installation difficult in some specific situations (wire clip mounts on the Zalman CNPS10X FLEX CPU cooler to be specific).
Overall Review: I have one of these as an exhaust fan on my case and two on my cooler and they help keep my AMD Phenom II 965 BE at a maximum temperature of 44ºC (1 hour OCCT Linpack stress test) with the Zalman cooler. The system barely had to ramp up the fan speed. Whisper quiet with the case 18" away from my head.
Pros: Keeps things *really* cool, nice to be able to mount 2 120mm fans, for someone with enough tech experience it's relatively straightforward to install. Just take your time...
Cons: Not really a con, but BIG, so check it will fit in your case before buying it. The wire clips are sometimes difficult to fit on the fans depending on the fan construction.
Overall Review: I'm running a Phenom II X4 965 BE, and to test it I ran OCCT Linpack for an hour. The temperature maxed out at 44ºC, so I have plenty of OC headroom (should I ever need to overclock this thing).
Pros: Fast drive, installed without any issues, not so much as a hiccup.
Cons: None that I found
Overall Review: Purchased as a replacement for a Toshiba laptop drive that failed 14 months after purchase. The Seagate is a far superior drive.
Pros: Worked perfectly, reasonably fast, inexpensive and doesn't take up much room in the gadget bin.
Cons: SATA connector just a little loose on one unit, Molex-SATA power adapter a little difficult to plug in.
Overall Review: I bought two of these units in part for some drive cloning and partly for data recovery on one of my home PCs (important data, but not $500-$1000 data job important). Both units picked up a flaky WD1600JD that wouldn't pick up on the internal SATA interfaces on two PCs. They allowed me to make a backup image and pull every file directly off the drive once I had it stabilized enough to read. If you need a basic USB->SATA/IDE unit without an enclosure, pick up two of these - you won't regret it.
Pros: - Brackets and screws for nearly everything - Relatively quiet even running flat out - Well engineered
Cons: - Parts bags could be labeled to simplify things
Overall Review: It took a bit to shoehorn this cooler into my case, and there was a bit of confusion for me as to the pump bracket screws (didn't match the picture in the manual), but overall it's working beautifully now. My CPU temps have dropped 10-15 °C and my boost is consistently 200MHz higher over stock cooling on my Ryzen 3700X while running Folding@home. I expect that will improve as the thermal compound cures after it's run for a while. The radiator fans also seem to be synchronized by using the included splitter cable, so it doesn't have that warble fans get when they are running at slightly different RPMs. Also, pretty glowy things with the lights off.