cover
Nathan B.

Nathan B.

Joined on 07/08/07

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 52
Most Favorable Review

Amazing Sli Board

ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: If you are going to run Sli then this board is a must. I have two 8800gs 512mb G92 versions on this board and they fly. I can get an average of 20-30fps in crysis at 1680x1050 4xaa and very high settings. This board has amazingly fast bios check speed too. When you turn the system on it flys through the bios check and you are loading windows in a blink of an eye.

Cons: The SATA ports are poorly placed and can really get in the way of two huge graphics cards. Also, there seems to be a problem when I have more then 2 hard drives hooked up. It becomes confused about the boot order and you have to manualy tell it which hard drive has the os on it. Just a small hassel.

Overall Review: Great board I would definetly buy again. Cheaper then a 780i or 790 and still as fast.

Most Critical Review

Piece, AVOID!

SCEPTRE X20WG-1080P Black 20.1" 5ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1,000:1, US Warranty
SCEPTRE X20WG-1080P Black 20.1" 5ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 1,000:1, US Warranty

Pros: When everything works right the monitor looks great. The box is easy to ship the product back in, repeatedly.

Cons: First time I received this monitor there was a dead pixel right dead in the center. I did not really care because that can happen. But then after sending it back and receiving a replacement the replacement didn't work. Worked for about 24 hours then died. Tried every kind of adjustment and all it would do was flash.

Overall Review: I think that the manufacturer is putting out a very poor product here. They should spend the extra ten minutes in production testing their monitors before they ship them out to the distributors like newegg.

12/28/2007

Amazing Cards

XFX GX285XZWBF GeForce GTX 285 1GB Black Edition 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
XFX GX285XZWBF GeForce GTX 285 1GB Black Edition 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Pros: Simply amazing cards. Have two of these cards and will be running in SLI as soon as my board comes back from being RMA'ed. For the time being, ran just a single card in a random Core 2 Quad machine and the performance from even just a single one of these cards is insane. Just one of these cards are faster than my old setup with two EVGA 8800gts's in sli. Maxed out Left 4 Dead at 1920x1080 and maxed out Unreal Tournament 3 at 1920x1080 with smooth as glass frame rates. Ran a 3D mark benchmark and received a just graphics score of 7126 marks. Simply amazing for a single card. Can’t wait to see them in SLI.

Cons: Heat. These cards do get rather hot even in a well ventilated case. The cards do have adequate cooling but do not underestimate the ambient heat they exude towards your board and any other cards you have close to them.

Overall Review: System Specs. 2x E5520 Nehalem Xeon Supermicro MBD-X8DA3-O Dual LGA 1366 24Gb DDR3 1600 OCZ Zalman ZM850-HP 850watt PSU VisionTek Juice Box 450watt 2x these cards Razer AC-1 Sound Card 4x 73gb 15k Fujitsu SAS Drives Raid 0 Raptor 150Gb WD 500GB ABS Black Pearl Case

Just Popped

CyberPower Intelligent LCD Series CP1500AVRLCD 1500 VA 900 Watts 12 Outlets UPS
CyberPower Intelligent LCD Series CP1500AVRLCD 1500 VA 900 Watts 12 Outlets UPS

Pros: While it worked it was an amazing unit. It stopped 2 brown outs and a couple power outages.

Cons: One day the power went out and the unit just popped and died as well as smoked out the top. Luckily it did not fry any of my equipment but still, this is a product that is supposed to stop those kinds of things and give me peace of mind that my equipment and data are safe. My mind is not at very much peace right now and I lost half a paper I had to write.

Overall Review: I know this seems to be a rare incident but it should not happen at all, especially since this is a product that is supposed to be your first and only line of defense against horrible power circumstances. I just believe that in the ups market there needs to be no failures like this.

Very Well Designed

iStarUSA D-4-B350PL-RED Steel 4U Rackmount Server Case 5xSATA Hot-Swap with 20" Depth only 4 External 5.25" Drive Bays
iStarUSA D-4-B350PL-RED Steel 4U Rackmount Server Case 5xSATA Hot-Swap with 20" Depth only 4 External 5.25" Drive Bays

Pros: Great server case. Hot swap SATA drives are very high quality and function exremely well. They make removing and inserting drives very easy and hassle free. I have four 80Gb drives in raid 0 and one 500Gb in the hot swap bays and it has no problems with heat and keeps the drives nice and cool. I purchased another 80mm fan for the back to improve airflow but the 80mm fan that comes with the case is fairly nice. It isn't very loud and moves a respectable about of air. I was surprised at how quiet the case was. Easliy the quietest case in my rack. Overall I gave this an excellent rating because it looked great and functioned extremely well without sounding like a shop vac. The build quality is bar none.

Cons: Like jamieb said earlier, the case doesnt hold EATX. That isn't a big deal though for me. He or she is also exactly correct about the site. That site is horrible. Took me forever to figure out where my product was on there. The only other tiny negative about this case is they drilled tons of holes on the top of the case, right on top of the two 80mm fans. This decreases air flow accross the board greatly.

Overall Review: The pictures provided don't show that there are security doors that cover the drive bays on both sides that hinge on the edges of the case. Overall I was and still am very happy with the case. For the price you really can't beat it. I would highly recomend.

Reliable so far

BIOSTAR 945GC Micro 775 LGA 775 Intel 945GC Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
BIOSTAR 945GC Micro 775 LGA 775 Intel 945GC Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Cheap reliable board so far. I purchased this board for a customer of mine and it has worked great so far. Easy to install. It was pry the simplest board I have seen in a while design wise, but it seems to work well. I had a flaw less windows load and quick driver instalation. Overall I was impressed.

Cons: Simple board not many frills or extras but it was cheap so what can you expect. The south bridge becomes rather hot when there is a lot of disk activity. But even with a windows load, probably the most straining thing you can do to a system, the south bridge didn't over heat.

Overall Review: Overall, I would say this is a good board, and a solid performer. I would never use it for a gamming computer but for everyday tasks it definetly works. I hope it doesn't quit on me.