cover
Christopher V.

Christopher V.

Joined on 01/16/08

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review

2 X GTX 295s

Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultima Extreme Duty CPU liquid cooling kit
Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultima Extreme Duty CPU liquid cooling kit

Pros: Water Cooling a Q9550and 2 X EVGA GTX 295s. This thing keeps my CPU and Video Cards under 30C Idle and 45C under full load via intel Burn in (Makes your CPU Hotter than it would ever realistically get) and other benchmarking apps. I wasnt sure that the radiator would be able to keep 3 huge sources of heat this cool but it definately can. I recently helped my brother build a 2 X 4890 Video card rig and his cards over heated on air cooling right out of the box (Factory overclocked) until we got his case cooling upgraded. I will never go back to water cooling again.

Cons: Be very careful when hooking this up, the coolant itself is non conductive and shouldnt destroy your rig if it should leak, what they dont tell you is that the dirt in your case + coolant is very conductive and will fry your hardware. I wish someone had told me, I lost 2 X Asus 4870X2 Tops this way.

Overall Review: Water cooling is dead silent, I can barely tell its even there. Much quieter than the 4 X 120MM fans I have running, and they are low RPM and low noise. I highly recommend liquid cooling your CPU and Graphics cards these days. I used to have problems on very hot days when gaming for long periods of time. Stock video cards are overclocked and have poor cooling and almost always result in issues right out of the box. I have seen this over and over with todays video cards and their clunky cheap heatsinks. Do yourself a favor and buy yourself water cooled video cards with factory warranties or buy EVGA or other brands that specifically state on their site they allow the stock heatink to be replaced with water cooling as long as they are put back together for RMA Process.

12/22/2009
Most Critical Review

What a Joke? Seriously?

Swiftech Caldera-HS AMD HD4870X2 full cover heatsink
Swiftech Caldera-HS AMD HD4870X2 full cover heatsink

Pros: Looks good

Cons: This thing does not keep an Asus Top Edition 4870X2 card cool. I use MCW60 water blocks to keep my GPUS under 30C idle and 45C full load but this heatsink could not do the same for my ram. It became soooo hot I had to install fans to keep this thing cool which was a problem as I had 2 X Asus 4870X2 tops. I read the MCW60s cool the GPUs better than the full water blocks as they are less restrictive and dont cool as well. However this doesnt keep my memory cool at all.

12/22/2009

Awesome - Quad SLI!

EVGA 03G-P3-1596-AR GeForce GTX 590 (Fermi) Classified 3072MB 768-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
EVGA 03G-P3-1596-AR GeForce GTX 590 (Fermi) Classified 3072MB 768-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: Extremely Fast Great Driver Support Great Software tools from EVGA 24/7 Technical Support Advanced Card Replacement next day if there is an issue Great performance Looks awesome WOW Runs at 5970X1080 at Ultra, all setting maxed and a 25man raid does not lag

Cons: Expensive Hard to find in stock I hate Power connectors that come out the side instead of the bottom or back, it looks awful and adds weight to your card I hate display port connectors, you plug an adaptor in and they always sag and fall out. Luckily I have 2 of these cards and I use 3 DVI plugs for my 3 monitors

Overall Review: I am running two of these on a QUAD SLI system. Asus P6T7 WS Super Computer (Water Cooled) Intel Core i7 930 (Water cooled at 4.2GHz) 12GB Ram I thought I would see more of a boost running QUAD SLI but I can clearly see I am CPU Bound. 1 card scores 33K on 3D Mark Vantage, 2 cards score 37K. Overclocking my CPU has drastically increased my QUAD SLI scores but I cant run my CPU that fast all the time. I guess I am off to buy a faster CPU!

12/13/2011

Expensive Mistake

ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer "Ultimate Gamer" choose 3Way SLI + PhysX at Real X16 X58 CEB Intel Motherboard
ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer "Ultimate Gamer" choose 3Way SLI + PhysX at Real X16 X58 CEB Intel Motherboard

Pros: There are none, seriously. This board does not work

Cons: Board was basically DOA. It would post and work but had massive issues. Random BSOD, random power ons and offs. Id be in the next room and it would power on. I was worried about flashing my video cards in case it did a random power off which was very common. I called tech support for a few things Overclocking - Not supported Power On/Off issue - RMA Sir? I dont want a darn RMA you have done nothing to confirm its your mobo Finally board wouldnt post... I have the diagnostics card in with error D7... D7 isnt a code in the book... Called Asus... First tech hung up on me 2 mins into call. Second tech refused to help me without a case speaker. Said Asus Techs dont have access to the diagnostics codes and only the beeps. I found a case speaker and then nothing... I spoke with 3 techs and all 3 wanted to RMA before I even finished telling them the problem..

Overall Review: No 24/7 Tech Support Techs only want to RMA board, no troubleshoot No Cross Ship on any of their products. Ive tried with two 4870X2s, and Asus Crossfire and now this darn board. Cmon asus, I got almost $8K in my rig and Im down for 3 weeks? I will never buy another Asus Motherboard ever again, or any of their other products either. I had two Asus 4870X2s fail and I had to throw them away because my wateblock void warranty. BFG and EVGA both allow warranty, you just have to reinstall the original heatsink or pay for its replacement. Bios only allows two profiles for settings. Lame No onboard Diags, have to use a card No onboard speaker No bios reset external or internal. Have to use a jumper or a jumper and battery. Please listen and stay away. Asus boards are junk

2 X GTX295's and 1 GTX 250

BFG Tech EX-1200 BFGR1200WEXPSU 1200W Continuous Rated at 40°C ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
BFG Tech EX-1200 BFGR1200WEXPSU 1200W Continuous Rated at 40°C ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: This thing is powering 4 X 10K Sas Drives, a High end Mobo, CPU, 4GB of DDR3, 2 DVDRWs, a Swiftech High end Liquid Cooling kit, 2 EVGA Hydro GTX 295's and a PNY GTS 250 (Physx) with no issues. The power supply is very quiet and has a very large fan to keep it cool. I like the modular plugs it comes with to keep the case clutter to a minimum.

Cons: This is not a completely modular power supply. First, it has a 8 pin 4 pin power for your mobo built into the main bundle, 1 is usesless clutter, it also has a cable full of 4 pin power cords which is also useless clutter as my DVDRWs are SATA and my SAS Drives are using SATA power not 4pin... It would be nice if this thing did not include so much in the main bundle as I spend hours making my cables extremely organized to make it look good and keep my airflow working at maximum.

Overall Review: I was a little confused at first with the way they did the PCI-E power, Each cable has 1 X 6 + 2 and 1 X 6 and I wasnt positive I could use both cables on a single cord or if I could only use both as 6 pin or 1 as 6+2. The answer is 1 single cord can be used as both a 6+2 and a 6 pin, so one cord can power at GTX 295 which really helps keep things neat and looking good. BFG Tech Support took almost 30 minutes to get someone on the phone. I normally only buy products from people with good tech support, BFG and EVGA both have US based support and are available 24/7, after all if your having issues gaming its most likely not going to be M-F from 9-5.... not if your going to pay for your nice gaming rig right? I wish more people would do this or BFG/EVGA would release more products as they seem to be Video Cards/Mobos/Power....

12/22/2009

Awful memory with Awful Support

OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2RPR10664GK
OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2RPR10664GK

Pros: Very Nice Looking, Great Paper Weight, Good to use as Dumbells

Cons: Memory Does not work on a Asus Rampage Formula using a 1600MHz FSB Processor. Tech Support is awful. I submitted a web ticke and they wouldnt give me tech support because of that. It was thursday and I wanted to get this fixed before the weekend and their Supervisor Brian refused to help me, said they dont walk all over each other. I asked for him to close the web ticket and help me and he refused again. Told me to go update my ticket on the web. Said I might not get a response before Monday. OCZ - I own so many of your memory and SSD Kits... I asked to speak with brians Manager and he said hes the top, noone else above him to hear my complaints. I asked Brian who was benefiting from forcing me to use the website for support instead of letting me do phone support at this point? I also asked him if his dept was service oriented... he had no responses for any of this. OCZ YOU FAIL AT SUPPORT AND I WILL NEVER BUY YOUR PRODUCTS AGAIN! IVE BEEN HAVING ISSUES FOR MONTHS!

Overall Review: Do not buy from OCZ - Poor customer support, they wont even wait on the phone to give you new settings and wait for you to run a quick memtest. Im talking to this Support guy and he gives me the settings, wont even wait for me to input them and I said, can you wait on the line so I can run a quick memtest? It always fails within the first 30seconds... he responded: Sir we are not allowed to wait on the phone. Sorry and good bye... NEWEGG - YOU SHOULD NO SELL SUCH JUNK ON YOUR SITE! Lucky for you I still love newegg, shipping is always fast... they are pros at customer support! and they always have low prices. THANKS ALOT!

10/15/2009