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Seth B.

Seth B.

Joined on 10/06/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 23
Most Favorable Review

High quality case

Fractal Design Define R5 Black Silent ATX Midtower Computer Case
Fractal Design Define R5 Black Silent ATX Midtower Computer Case

Pros: - Pretty much everything feels high quality - Lots of configuration options for cooling, storage, etc - Looks really nice and simple - Oh yeah, it is pretty quiet too

Cons: - Hard drive trays seem somewhat cheap (I dunno...I had to put something here)

Overall Review: I did not list this as a con because for me it is not but the case is quite heavy. You won't want to use this for a computer that you will be moving around often.

12/31/2016
Most Critical Review

A bit flakey and not great memory compatibility

ASUS Prime X370-Pro AM4 AMD X370 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI ATX Motherboards - AMD
ASUS Prime X370-Pro AM4 AMD X370 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI ATX Motherboards - AMD

Pros: - The positioning of the m.2 slot is better than a lot of boards I've seen - In fact the layout overall was very easy to work with - UEFI BIOS interface is pretty good overall (easy to find what you are looking for - Good overclocking ability

Cons: - Memory compatibility is very bad. If you are not careful you may end up with perfectly good 2666 memory that will only run at 2133 (like I did) - RGB appears to have died (both the header to the Wraith cooler and the onboard RGB) after a little over a week. - For whatever reason, my TT Poseiden tenkeyless keyboard is mapped all wrong in the BIOS. My other tenkeyless works fine so....I have no idea what the deal is - Would like to see a way to re-label fan headers for water pump headers to case fan headers

Overall Review: Honestly, this board is just ok. I bought it because it was really the only decent Ryzen board available when I was trying to put together my order. Everything is fine overall and the software package is ok but with the flakiness and lack of memory compatibility and the fact that the RGB already appears to be non-functional I do worry about the longevity of this board.

It renders games....quickly and quietly

EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Black Edition, 08G-P4-5173-KR, 8GB GDDR5, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC)
EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC GAMING ACX 3.0 Black Edition, 08G-P4-5173-KR, 8GB GDDR5, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC)

Pros: - No compatibility issues so far - Performance is good without additional overclocking - Fans are quiet, even during gaming it is hard to distinguish any sound from this card from any other fan sounds in the case

Cons: - Honestly, probably a bit overpriced but probably my own fault for being impatient and not waiting for price drops

Works hard and plays hard

AMD Ryzen 7 1st Gen - RYZEN 7 1700 Summit Ridge (Zen) 8-Core 3.0 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4 65W YD1700BBAEBOX Desktop Processor
AMD Ryzen 7 1st Gen - RYZEN 7 1700 Summit Ridge (Zen) 8-Core 3.0 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4 65W YD1700BBAEBOX Desktop Processor

Pros: - This processor loves to run my dev VMs I can give plenty of cores to each VM to suit my needs - Great at handling large workloads....in the background. For instance I can load up all cores and threads with processing tasks and still the system is usable for things such as web browsing, watching videos, working, etc - Very good gaming performance (and no, I don't care that the i7 7700k might give me 10-20fps more in some games...it is insigificant to me and I am hopeful that things will even up a bit over time) - Good power consumption, though 65W TDP does seem a bit optimistic - The Wraith Spire cooler is pretty decent (keeps things reasonably cool under load and stay pretty quiet at normal and low load levels) and the RGB on it is kind of a nice touch.

Cons: - There are some launch issues with some FMA3 instructions causing bad stuff to happen (hard lock). I believe have run into this but it does sound like a fix is forthcoming

Overall Review: If you just want a pure gaming system and don't care about the rest, maybe there is a lower cost Intel or AMD alternative that may even outperform the R7 series in games but if the things you use your computer for live extra cores and threads, I don't see anything topping the value of the R7 series right now.

Really fast...pretty hot

Plextor M8Pe(G) M.2 2280 1TB NVMe PCI-Express 3.0 x4 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) PX-1TM8PeG
Plextor M8Pe(G) M.2 2280 1TB NVMe PCI-Express 3.0 x4 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) PX-1TM8PeG

Pros: - Read and write speeds are as advertised (excellent) - No stability issues so far - Not sure how functional the heat spreader is but it does look mice

Cons: - Does seem to run a bit hot but is not causing any real issues for me - No real software available (other manufacturers have some nice packages that check usage, etc)

Overall Review: Plextor, the 90s called and they want their "delayed draw" BIOS logo back. Please give an option to disable the delay on the BIOS logo so I can get my 1 second of boot time back.

No problems, good performance

SAMSUNG 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal SSD Single Unit Version MZ-M5E500BW
SAMSUNG 850 EVO mSATA 500GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal SSD Single Unit Version MZ-M5E500BW

Pros: - Performance is on par with other mSATA devices - Almost 2 years in and is still running with no issues

Cons: none

Overall Review: I really like the mSATA and m.2 form factors for laptops. This drive is no exception and has been very stable and fast.

12/31/2016