cover
Matthew F.

Matthew F.

Joined on 01/26/05

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 15
Most Favorable Review

Great value

ASRock H470 Phantom Gaming 4 LGA 1200 Intel H470 SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard
ASRock H470 Phantom Gaming 4 LGA 1200 Intel H470 SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: The price was good. It has two M.2 storage slots, plus plenty of SATA3 ports.

Cons: I wish it had more USB ports, but that wasn't significant enough to knock an egg. It didn't come with a side of nachos.

Overall Review: Overall, I'm please with the board. It's paired with an i5-10400 and everything is working fine. Also using an ADATA M.2 NVME drive, which is nice. I like it having the M.2 WiFi/BT slot. I may pick up one of those soon. The BIOS is fairly easy to navigate. I got a couple of 2TB HDDs setup in RAID1 smoothly enough. I would buy this board again, and definitely recommend it.

Most Critical Review

Disappointed

Creative ZEN STONE PLUS Blue 2GB MP3 Player
Creative ZEN STONE PLUS Blue 2GB MP3 Player

Pros: Small. Decent build quality.

Cons: Awkward menu navigation. Very limited browsing options.

Overall Review: I bought the Zen Stone Plus based on good reviews on NewEgg. We've ended up being disappointed with the product, mainly due to its extremely limited options for browsing music. Spend the extra $20-30 and get the Zen V.

Good value. Easy install and setup

Fenvi 3000Mbps Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 AX200NGW Gig+ Desktop Kit For M.2 22*30mm Key E Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Adapter, For Intel AX200 NGFF Card, 2.4Ghz/5Ghz, 802.11ax/ac, Support MU-MIMO, OFDMA, Windows 10
Fenvi 3000Mbps Dual Band Wi-Fi 6 AX200NGW Gig+ Desktop Kit For M.2 22*30mm Key E Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Adapter, For Intel AX200 NGFF Card, 2.4Ghz/5Ghz, 802.11ax/ac, Support MU-MIMO, OFDMA, Windows 10

Pros: For a BT + WiFi adapter, it's cheap Install and setup was a breeze BT has good range and WiFi seems to have good speed

Cons: None that I have found

Overall Review: Downloaded latest AX200 drivers from Intel, and they both installed in seconds with no issues. The only issue I had with install (and not an issue with the Fenvi card) was that my M.2 WiFi socket was under the video card. Fortunately, this thing is so thin that the two can coexist just fine. I needed the M.2 card so I could free up a USB port that was occupied by a BT adapter. It has way better range than the USB adapter. I don't use WiFi normally, as I have an Ethernet connection available. I did check it out, though, and the signal strength is good and a speed test easily maxed out the 200M connection from my ISP. I haven't tried a LAN speed test. I would definitely recommend it.

They're cables

Rosewill RCSC-18005 [3-Pack] SATA Cable Straight to Straight Connectors SATA III 6.0 Gbps, SATA Cable 18 Inches, SATA 3 Cable - 18 Inches, Black, 3-Pack
Rosewill RCSC-18005 [3-Pack] SATA Cable Straight to Straight Connectors SATA III 6.0 Gbps, SATA Cable 18 Inches, SATA 3 Cable - 18 Inches, Black, 3-Pack

Pros: They successfully move bits back and forth

Cons: None so far

Overall Review: I go back and forth on the retention clips. Sometimes I curse them and sometimes they give me a warm, fuzzy feeling. I'm on warm, fuzzy right now. I got a great deal on these, as they were on sale.

Fast. Great value.

XPG SX8200 Pro Series: 512GB Internal Solid State Drive PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280
XPG SX8200 Pro Series: 512GB Internal Solid State Drive PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280

Pros: Super fast Runs pretty cool in my limited tests

Cons: None so far

Overall Review: I shopped around quite a bit for an NVME drive. I settled on the ADATA after reading about the extreme temperatures that a competitor's drive exhibits. I ran CrystalDiskMark (4 GB) on this thing, and the temperature never budged off of 35C, and that's without the heat spreader.

Pretty good budget case

Cougar MX330-X Mid Tower Case with USB 3.0
Cougar MX330-X Mid Tower Case with USB 3.0

Pros: The price Comes with 3.5" HD caddies OK cable management for a cheap case Good assortment of fan install points.

Cons: I found a number of metal burs from the machining process. Some of them were sharp, so watch out for those. Also, if they happened to fall onto your MB or something, that could cause issues, although that's not likely. The front panel is NOT "easily removable" as the documentation says. I had an Antec case before this, and it's front was dead easy to remove. I always feel like I'm about to break one of the tabs trying to remove it. The documentation is not very good. It tells you nothing about the front panel cabling. I figured it out in the end, but I'm still confused as to why there are TWO USB 2.0 header connectors for ONE USB 2.0 port. I connected them both, and the port works. *shrug*

Overall Review: I was on the fence between 3 and 4 eggs. The price and the fact that my "cons" are relatively minor pushed me up to 4. I'm not 100 percent sure I would buy this case again, but I would consider it. Also, I'm perplexed about the empty USB holes on the front panel. I wish there was some easy way to add ports to those holes, but I see no easy way to do that.