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Brian S.

Brian S.

Joined on 02/11/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 10
Most Favorable Review

Great so far

XFX P1-650X-CAH9 650 W ATX12V v2.2 / ESP12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
XFX P1-650X-CAH9 650 W ATX12V v2.2 / ESP12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: This thing is HEAVY, very nice quality. I could use this thing to power my machine or fight off home intruders. Fan is quiet, tons of hookups for the modular cables, PCI-e connectors everywhere for the SLI fanatics.

Cons: The only thing that's kind of awkward about it is the wire bundle that's built into the PSU has 3 PCI-e connectors on it, so unless you're running SLI you're going to have a spare wire hogging up airflow space. Not enough to take off an egg, just an observation. I'm just a little OCD about my case being tidy. =)

Overall Review: I like the bag they include for the modular cables. Nice for storing your spares for later use. Rebate was also very easy to file through XFX. People complaining about the fan, I don't have that problem at all. It's been running 24/7 for 2 weeks now and not a sound. Machine it's powering: Phenom II 965 BE @ 3.5ghz 8GB Patriot DDR3 @ 1600mhz Sapphire HD5870 2GB

Most Critical Review

Great when it works

XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card HD-687A-ZNFC
XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card HD-687A-ZNFC

Pros: It was awesome in games. I pegged every setting to max in Bad Company 2, Starcraft 2, and WoW, all @ 1920x1200 resolution and it went through it like butter.

Cons: A lot of problems on the desktop. I would get constant TDR events while browsing the web, or even using Windows explorer. It seemed to get really bad if I used MSN messenger while running WoW in windowed mode. Usually the screen would freeze and flicker, then say windows recovered a driver. After a few days it would just bluescreen and cite atikmpag.sys as the crashed file. My troubleshooting steps: 1: Booted in safe mode and ran driver sweeper, and then rebooted and tried installing drivers 11.1, 10.12, 10.11, 10.10, and 10.9. Stopped trying after 5 different drivers. 2: Updated my mobo bios 3: Disabled Aero (win 7 64bit) 4: Verified my memory timings were all set to factory settings. 5: Verified the power supply was putting out correct power w/ my multimeter. 6: In a last ditch effort, tossed in a clean hard drive, did a fresh install of Win7 64bit, and it bluescreened as soon as I installed an AMD driver.

Overall Review: Newegg was at least nice about the RMA, annoyed I have to pay a restocking fee but what can you do. Thing is, the more you research the issue, the more it's obvious even AMD doesn't have a solution. Their forums basically just tell you to troubleshoot everything in your computer from A-Z, so it's hard to pin down, but I find it odd that once it's in a game and running it just runs smooth as butter, but in Windows it can't seem to get it's act together in a stable fashion. By the end of the week I had it, the crashes were happening more and more often, and starting to be accompanied by checkering and tearing, so it seemed like a hardware failure if I had to make a guess. I wouldn't rule these cards out, but the 5870 2gb card for 180 is too much to pass up on todays shell shocker. I will say also a friend of mine bought this same card and his works flawlessly, no errors, I guess I just got unlucky. First bad part I got from Newegg in 7 years of buying....good odds =)

Surprisingly Helpful

Gunnar MLG Phantom Gaming Eyewear with Amber Lens Tint and Gloss Onyx Frame Color PHA-00101
Gunnar MLG Phantom Gaming Eyewear with Amber Lens Tint and Gloss Onyx Frame Color PHA-00101

Pros: These noticeably reduce my eyestrain when working. If I'm reading anything on a monitor, these definitely crisp things up a little and soften the colors. I no longer have a headache by the end of the day. Really nice change.

Cons: I don't think they're that great for gaming. In a lot of instances it almost seems like they grey out certain subtle colors...I almost find myself straining a little harder to see things that I'm used to seeing without them. I don't know if it's just something I need to get used to or what. Ironicly enough, I just don't think they're very useful for gaming.

Overall Review: Some people complain that the frame feels "cheap". I think they just don't know how glasses work. A lightweight flexible frame is a very good thing in glasses because idealy you don't feel them on your face at all. This is obviously goes against the grain of "quality" being "heavy construction" but these are actually really nice frames. If you're working all day on a computer I would recommend these. If you're a strictly a gamer...I don't see a reason to have them, at least in my experience. I'm usually playing CS:GO, SC2, Chivalry, WoW, LoL...fairly standard stuff.

Awesome

Fractal Design Define R4 Black Window Silent ATX Midtower Computer Case
Fractal Design Define R4 Black Window Silent ATX Midtower Computer Case

Pros: Great cable management. Noticable sound dampening. Lots of room to work with. Modular drive bays. Great air flow, my system stays very cool. Has a very quality feel to it, heavy construction, no give in the side panels or mobo tray. Drive racks are very sturdy, you don't feel like you're going to break something sliding a drive in.

Cons: You can only remove the middle part of the modular hard drive bays. I wanted to remove the ones that go to the bottom of the case, but that's actually where the mounting points are for it. If you just try to leave the middle piece in, there's nothing to secure it, so it will just fall off. Not a huge drawback, but just something to keep in mind when ordering, you have to have the drive bays on the bottom of the case.

Overall Review: People saying size is a drawback...it's got the dimensions posted on the description...you know how big it is before you buy it. Why are you surprised... If space is an issue for you, don't go with this case, it's pretty large. If you like the convenience and airflow of a large case, with some respectable sound-dampening abilities, buy this. I love it.

Nice Suprise

Sceptre 42" 3-D Ready 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV E425BV-FHDD
Sceptre 42" 3-D Ready 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV E425BV-FHDD

Pros: I was pleasently suprised with this. Took a gamble, picked it up at 399.99. Everything worked great right out of the box. No dead pixels. Picture quality is better than what I expected for a 400 dollar TV. 3D works nicely with the glasses. Lots of inputs. Decent sound quality.

Cons: I think the colors leave a little to be desired. It doesn't look bad by any means, but it seems like no matter what I do the contrast just looks a little exaggerated. This is a very nitpicky observation and I think I only really notice because my other TV is a plasma so I have a decently high bar to compare it to.

Overall Review: This TV is great for the price. I picked it up as a set for the bedroom, and it sits about 15 feet away from our bed. The sound is good even in a bigger room, and the picture quality suprised me. I was hesitant to take a shot on Sceptre because I had never heard of them, but Newegg has been carrying them for quite a while now and I can honestly say I'm glad I took the plunge. If you're on the fence, go for it. This is just as nice a TV as the one you'll find down at your big box store with a 600-800$ price tag on it.

Awesome

CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CWCH60) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CWCH60) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Pros: Works great. I put this on my i7 3770k, temps float between 25c and 35c under load. I'm not overclocking, but I do run a lot of VM's. Installation was really easy. The only hard part was putting the bracket on the back because the mounts for the screws are moveable to make the bracket more universal, so you kinda have to mess with it to get it lined up right. I think it was only a problem because I was doing it after I mounted the motherboard into the case. Very quiet device too. Overall I'm very impressed, this was my first time using a liquid solution, and its about the same price as a nice Zalman fan, but it takes up way less space and is just as quiet, and probably more efficient.

Cons: It seems like it comes default with the intel bracket on the water block. I may have just misread the instructions, but it didn't seem to indicate which bracket was the AMD compatible one and which was intel. They have some good videos on their site though that explained it pretty quick.

Overall Review: If you're on the fence about liquid cooling, try this out. I was, and I won't go back to an air solution.