Joined on 11/02/04
790X = No Integrated Worthlessness
Pros: High quality Japanese capacitors No Integrated video Passive cooling SB 750 Southbridge is the best overclocker for Phenom AM3 Ready IEEE 1394 Support Dual Bios
Cons: No DDR3 No eSATA No Crossfire Accessories
Overall Review: Awesome motherboard. It has a solid discount under the 790FX because of no integrated video. It has the same performance though. Gigabyte is one of the better quality boards now. My System Vista Ultimate 32-bit (Scores a 5.7) Phenom 9500 @2.51Ghz (TLB FIX DISABLED) 2GB Corsair XMS 800Mhz @ 912Mhz Asus Radeon 4670 (Stock) Maxtor 500GB (Seagate 7200.10 rebrand) Antec Sonata II Antec Earthwatts 500W (Delta)
Didn't unlock, I can wait for a cheap quad
Pros: Really solid single-core processor. It is actually as fast as a dual core celeron at stock. Overclocked it is slightly slower than the Pentium dualcores. Really low temps and power draw at load condition. Can maybe be unlocked to 2 cores Lets me wait out for some mean processors that are a better value
Cons: Mine didn't unlock no matter what I did Single core is trying to be punished by developers. Left 4 Dead 2's intro has sound glitches on ANY single core. Ghostbusters won't run worth a nickel on this. GTA IV got 16 fps. It is as fast as dual cores that do a good job. Seems like a load of bologna to me.
Overall Review: This is as fast as my old Socket 939 X2 3800+ OC'd to a 4800+. Some games just want a dual-core now but it's few and far between. I can run almost any game but Ghostbusters and GTA IV. Left 4 Dead 2 runs great in game.
3450 Hybrid 667mhz ram
Pros: This card is great for Hybrid Crossfire. The IGP will shut off and save power while on the desktop. There are NO cards that will get near the low power of this card. Then when you play games it'll crank out some respectable numbers. It runs Left 4 Dead 2 great on mostly low. It is slightly slower than a 4350 when in Crossfire, with the igp overclocked to 600mhz and IF the memory were actually 800mhz.
Cons: The memory is 666mhz, meh. I could overclock it to 800 but why? Why did they make it 666mhz in the bios. The heatsink is pointlessly big. They also do not give directions to set up Hybrid Crossfire. I wonder how many people have messed it up.
Overall Review: To setup Hybrid Crossfire 1 Graphics mode to UMA and overclock VGA to 600mhz IN BIOS 2 UMA Buffer to 256 or 512mb IN BIOS 3 Surround View disabled IN BIOS 4 Set Boot VGA to OnChip IN BIOS 5 Plug monitor into Onboard VGA IN BIOS 6 Enable Crossfire in Catalyst Control in XP(old drivers might not work), Vista, or 7
Great for an X2
Pros: Works great with Vista 32, faster than my 512mb X1650XT, makes Crysis look great
Cons: Large, and when the heck did they make an 8 pin PCI-e adapter. That 6-pin one is still flopping around my case.
Overall Review: Geez this was cheap.