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Ricardo W.

Ricardo W.

Joined on 08/15/12

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 26
Most Favorable Review

Doesn't Cook Dinner

ASUS ROG STRIX B450-I GAMING AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
ASUS ROG STRIX B450-I GAMING AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI Mini ITX AMD Motherboard

Pros: -Very detailed and varied UEFI/BIOS features. -BCLK overclocking. -QLEDs are very helpful. -Easy and conveniently placed CMOS pins (thank you and I mean it.) -Rated up to DDR4 3600. -Decent memory training.

Cons: -*Quirky behavior with voltage changes. -*Quirky behavior with CAD Bus/IMC changes. -M.2 front slot is inconvenient to reach, back slot drops PCIE speed to x8 (so the manual says, didn't verify.) *Basically I have to remove all power from the system to get it to train/apply properly.

Overall Review: Came from an ASROCK Fatal1ty mini ITX and this mobo is definitely what I wanted from the start. Better UEFI with more features and the CMOS pin is actually somewhere reachable (in fact instead of a jumper you can short it with a screw driver.) These QOL things were a big time saver. Ryzen 1500X @ 3.6Ghz (PBO/CBS disabled) with DDR4 32GB @ 3533Mhz. While the cons are inconvenient I consider it a fact of pushing the processor's IMC to its limits. DDR4 3600 might be possible but look, I bricked a $700 GPU getting the memory stable

Most Critical Review

Nice drives but weak under Heavy I/O

ADATA 32GB UV128 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Flash Drive (AUV128-32G-RBE)
ADATA 32GB UV128 USB 3.2 Gen 1 Flash Drive (AUV128-32G-RBE)

Pros: -They work, have yet to fail. -32 GB.

Cons: -Does NOT like being under heavy I/O operations -As a result of the above these tend to slow down after a short period of time. -They appear to corrupt data during heavy writes. -Can lockup and become unrecognized during the aforementioned.

Overall Review: For the most typical average user work these are good drives. They store data. However when try to use them to play games, run an OS, or just decompress multiple files to it the drive tends to choke up. -Decompressing a sample library to it resulted in corrupted files. Did it on the HDD instead (like one should) -Only managed to install 1 game and it did have some quirks. 99% of the time it's reasonably fast. -Running Xubuntu is a nightmare, does not even work anymore (corrupted?) If you keep you load reasonably then these usb drives work. Otherwise you can end up with issues. I've reformatted them a few times already.

11/29/2018

32GB of Awesome

G.SKILL Sniper X Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Desktop Memory Model F4-3600C19D-32GSXKB
G.SKILL Sniper X Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Desktop Memory Model F4-3600C19D-32GSXKB

Pros: -High Speed RAM -16GB per stick, works on my ITX mobo -Seems to be going strong.

Cons: -Hynix Memory -Was NOT successful in achieving stable 3600 Mhz (See Other)

Overall Review: This is being used on a *Ryzen system whereas the motherboard supports up to DDR4 3466. After countless CMOS resets and months of learning the Ryzen IMC I did manage 3466 Mhz stable but at 3600 speeds it just vomits and at this point I don't care. Is it the sticks' fault I can't get 3600 Mhz? Maybe but unlikely. To be honest just getting them to finally run at 3466 (some people can't even get 3200 working) is enough for me. Furthermore while we tested our builds on AIDA64 Benchmarks my system won undisputed on the memory benchmarks against a 9900K with DDR4 3600 XMP 16GB and 7700K DDR4 3200 XMP. That in itself is a win and having gotten G.Skill memory from my first 2012 build I look forward to buying them yet again. System: CPU: Ryzen 5 1500X Motherboard: AsRock Fatal1ty Gaming ITX GPU: Sapphire Radeon VII RAM: [The ones I'm reviewing] *Ryzen's IMC is considered inferior to Intel. It does struggle a lot more to maintain integrity at higher frequencies.

It's Not Top Dog..... but it's got some FP64 power.

SAPPHIRE Radeon VII 16GB HBM2 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card 21291-01-40G
SAPPHIRE Radeon VII 16GB HBM2 PCI Express 3.0 x16 ATX Video Card 21291-01-40G

Pros: -Better than Vega 64 -16GB VRAM -Decent clock speeds -"Free" HBM2 overclocking -System more likely to recover from hanging or throw out DX11 error on incompatible OC -Dual Slot GPU

Cons: -Immature drivers? -Not too Eco-friendly -Cooling solution is okay -Fan Curve is based on junction temperature -Missing VBIOS switch?

Overall Review: A premature review or "preview." Current drivers HBM clock speed caps at 1200Mhz which this card is able to hit. Supposedly other reviewers manage to hit 1200Mhz as well no issue. To my surprise it actually STILL improves performance despite [the card] having a ludicrous amount of bandwidth. The fact AMD's paltry 64 ROPs continue to scale off that baffles me. I undervolted and reduced the card's clockspeeds to essential Vega 64 OC levels. The cooler, quite frankly, is not a quiet type and these cards can get hot. How fast/noisy do you want your fans to run to cool the beast? Until drivers become better it's likely in your best interest to undervolt the card. Less power, less heat, more thermal headroom, better potential clocks. Unlike the Bios flashed Vega 56 OC'd I'm actually happy with the performance. Was it worth the upgrade? No. However if you had a GTX 1060/970, Fury X/RX 580, cards around that power then you may want to show consideration. System MOB: ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming ITX CPU: AMD Ryzen 1500X @ 3.6Ghz MEM: 32GB G.Skill SniperX DDR3600 @ 3466Mhz (Ryzen don't like no Hynix Memory) GPU: AMD Radeon VII 1645Mhz Core Clock, 1200Mhz Mem Clock.

Great for gaming but less satisfactory for overclockers.

ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/ac AM4 AMD Ryzen 3000 Series CPU Ready Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/ac AM4 AMD Ryzen 3000 Series CPU Ready Mini ITX AMD Motherboard

Pros: -Compact -Many features -Memory strappings up to and beyond DDR4 4000+

Cons: -CMOS jumper inconveniently placed. -No Load Line Calibration -No Base Clock Adjustments -M.2 on the backside of the board. -CPU voltage adjustments do not work properly below 3500 Mhz.

Overall Review: The case I used had a PCIE riser so I was actually able to access the CMOS jumper/CMOS reset without removing the GPU (used electrical pliers and a screw driver.) Aside from that here are the problems BIG for me. No BLCK overclocking. The motherboard is clocked slightly lower than 100Mhz and to top it all off it supports overclocking SATA peripherals, they have their own clock domain. I think that's a bit counterintuitive. Changing the CPU voltage below a certain value when the multiplier is too low results in it being ignored. CPU offset voltage only goes -100mV, otherwise the voltage is automatically adjusted as clock speed decreases. This means I can't reduce power/heat as much as I want.... This could be a Ryzen problem but maybe BIOS, no idea. Because it works I'd like to give it a four egg but if the B450 version has almost the same amount of features then this board is a bit overpriced. I paid to get LLC and BLCK, not for a conservatively clocked motherboard.

The box lied to me......

SUNSKY EWKENG 51R DTS / AC3 to Analog 5.1 Audio / Stereo Audio Digital Audio Converter Decoder
SUNSKY EWKENG 51R DTS / AC3 to Analog 5.1 Audio / Stereo Audio Digital Audio Converter Decoder

Pros: -Supports 5.1 sound -It works -DPL II support (haven't tested it yet.) -Much better than my monitor's DAC.

Cons: -Box said "Video Converter" -Hoped for an HDMI input for audio

Overall Review: Got this because the DAC on my monitor is pretty trash. Going to need another solution for HDMI audio. Supports 5.1 Surround. FL FR SL SR CEN SW Didn't really play around because "It just works," Using SP/DIF for headphones.