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Andrew W.

Andrew W.

Joined on 06/06/01

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review

Great Product

COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 1366/1155/775 and AMD AM3/AM2+/AM2
COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 1366/1155/775 and AMD AM3/AM2+/AM2

Pros: This cooler works better than I had expected. I have my i7 920 overclocked to 3.2Ghz on an ASUS Rampage II Extreme. With the stock Intel cooler I was easily reaching 185*F+ while encoding video since it uses all 8 "cores". It would idle @ 120*. I put this cooler on and it now idles @ 88-90*F, and under the same encoding load it maxes out at 135*F! Excellent construction, good mounting system. Fan runs @ 2050RPM on high and is virtually silent inside the case. Looks awesome in my Thermaltake Armour case, LED fans, and Crucial Ballistix Tracer RAM.

Cons: Could use more LEDs!

Overall Review: I read some of the other reviews about messed up mounting brackets but mine were perfect, no issues mounting to an ASUS Rampage II Extreme. I also purchased some Arctic Silver 5 and later found that it comes with a sample of their thermal compound. It looks to be more than enough for a couple CPUs so save your money. I doubt you would see any difference in temps between the two, but at less than ten bucks for AS its no big loss.

Works Well

Rosewill RCP-SC39 2.1A Mini Car USB Adapter/Fast Charger for iPad, iPhone/iPod, Smart Phone & MP3/4
Rosewill RCP-SC39 2.1A Mini Car USB Adapter/Fast Charger for iPad, iPhone/iPod, Smart Phone & MP3/4

Pros: Works well charging my Galaxy Tab and iPad in the car on long trips. The low profile lets me use it in the center console where others were too big. High amp rating charges power hungry devices.

Cons: none

Top Notch

LSI LSI00144 PCI Express SATA / SAS MegaRAID SAS 8704ELP
LSI LSI00144 PCI Express SATA / SAS MegaRAID SAS 8704ELP

Pros: Solid performing card with great features and management tools for the price. LSI (which now owns 3ware) has terrific technical support and has been in the storage controller business for years. I purchased this card to get off of the flaky built-in Intel Storage Matrix controller that came with my motherboard. My avg. read throughput on a 4 disk SATAII RAID 0, went from ~150MBps to 197MBps using HDTune to test. Win 7 support with latest drivers seals the deal.

Cons: 100 bucks for the battery backup unit for this card seems steep, but I have a UPS on my computer so hopefully it wont be an issue. Just know what you are getting into if you dont have a BBU for your write cache. If you have a dirty shutdown you will most likely get corruption on some part of your volume.

Overall Review: I cant wait to install a couple SSDs on this bad boy here in a few months when the prices drop a bit...should really scream.

10/30/2009

Nifty

Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory w/ Red LEDs Model BL3KIT25664TR1608
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory w/ Red LEDs Model BL3KIT25664TR1608

Pros: Great memory!!! Had it running on day one at over 1600mhz with 8-8-8 settings on a Rampage II Extreme with i920 @ 3.4Ghz. Lights are pretty cool through the window. Very happy with this purchase.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Not going for any records, just want a fast stable system and these deliver. I have had it clocked over 1700 with no issues while testing, may bump CPU to 3.6Ghz and RAM over 1700 and see how stable it is long term. Should be fine but my pair of 8800 GTXs are my bottle neck now so it wont change games, just CPU benchmarks and movie encoding...

Silvery

Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-3.5G
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-3.5G

Pros: Always works. If you have any doubt buy AS and you wont be disappointed.

Cons: Not sure it is worth the cost since just about any cooler comes with a thermal compound now.

Overall Review: Unless you are OC'ing and need every last degree out of your CPU, I doubt you will see any difference. But what fun would that be.

Nice Drive

Sony Optiarc DVD Burner with LightScribe 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW Black SATA Model AD-7241S-0B LightScribe Support
Sony Optiarc DVD Burner with LightScribe 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW Black SATA Model AD-7241S-0B LightScribe Support

Pros: Its faster than my old one. Very quiet.

Cons: Drive doesn't seem to like the computer being put in sleep mode. When the computer wakes the drive continuously accesses the disc that is in the drive and sometimes hangs until I eject the disc and reinsert it. I will update the firmware and see if that resolves it.