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Darren D.

Darren D.

Joined on 01/08/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Fast but Hot

ASUS Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Video Card EAH4850/HTDI/512M
ASUS Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Video Card EAH4850/HTDI/512M

Pros: Went from an 8800GT to this 4850 x2 in crossfire. I run everything at 1900x1200. 3DMark06 went from 14,500 to 18,000 with a q6600 running at 3.4ghz. Crysis saw marginal improvements, but every other game increased quite a bit at this resolution.

Cons: Stock cooling is not adequate. I replaced the stock heat sink/fans with Thermaltake DualOrbs and the idle temps dropped from 63C to 42C, and load temps from 85C to 55C. You can run with the stock coolers and not kill your system, but the high temps scared me. Also, Asus has their fan control software that works great, but the stock coolor at 100% fan speed is LOUD. Too loud. The DualOrb sounds like the stock fan speed at 30% all the time. It's perfect.

Overall Review: You can pick the DualOrb up here on Newegg. They're listed as Thermaltake CL-G0102 VGA Cooler - Retail.

Most Critical Review

Cheap keyboard

Rosewill RK-7310 Black 105 Normal Keys 7 Function Keys USB Wired Super Slim Multimedia Keyboard
Rosewill RK-7310 Black 105 Normal Keys 7 Function Keys USB Wired Super Slim Multimedia Keyboard

Pros: Cheap

Cons: Feels Cheap

Overall Review: You get what you pay for.

Big picture

Hanns·G HG-281DPB Black 28" 3ms  Widescreen LCD HDMI Monitor 500 cd/m2 800:1 Built-in Speakers
Hanns·G HG-281DPB Black 28" 3ms Widescreen LCD HDMI Monitor 500 cd/m2 800:1 Built-in Speakers

Pros: Going from a Dell 20' wide screen to this, I'm in love. I had to readjust my sitting distance from the monitor.

Cons: None

Overall Review: No dead/stuck pixels for me.

Quiet and cool

Thermaltake CL-G0102 VGA Cooler
Thermaltake CL-G0102 VGA Cooler

Pros: Dropped my idle temps from 63C to 42C, and load temps from 85C to 50C. Operates at a constant fan speed which equals to setting the stock cooler on my Asus card to 30% fan speed.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Running 2 of these with 4850 crossfire in a system with a q6600 overclocked to 3.4ghz so my temps will be higher than some.