Joined on 12/07/12
This card is a little power house!
Pros: I have thrown a lot at this card and its OC features have it run through the intense graphics at max quality while maintaining reasonable FPS.
Cons: This card's design leads it to over heat I think because it fans the exhaust inside the case while only a little bit goes out the back. I knew this before buying it so I cannot take an egg for that, it was on sale at a great deal.
Overall Review: I live in a hot climate (Puerto Rico) so I cannot blame the high temperature. I found a quick fix by using MSI Afterburner to restrict the clock of the card. I haven't noticed any performance loss because the card is over the top to pretty much any game that have been known for benchmarking like Bioshock Infinite and COD Black Ops II.
Tottal Failure of a PSU
Pros: The machine boots...
Cons: After getting everything hooked up with GTX 660 and intel i5-3570k WITH 8GB Crucial sport it started fine. I then went to benchmark it with Heaven and the problems began. A clicking sound occurred and became more frequent as the benchmark went. 3/4 in to the mark the machine shutdown to fatal power error. Bled the capacitors and rebooted to the same effect.
Overall Review: I took the board to a friend and tested it on his machine where we replaced his 500w with mine and tried it out with the same effect to his as well. Instant RMA from Newegg and Lepa. I then got a 900W coolmax 80 Bronze certified and it works perfectly now. I will never buy a non 80 certified PSU again.
Great buy for a power house.
Pros: This thing is a power house and for a great buy. Modular is a plus and I never have to worry about taxing this to the limit.
Cons: I cannot think of any after using it for a while.
Overall Review: I was skeptical at first because of the price and the overpowered 900W. Now after owning it for a while it became a great investment and due to previous RMA PSU from my build this product has earned my trust. I have bench-marked and Overclocked everything on my board to the max and it ran impressively.
Fast and efficient.
Pros: Really fast and clean, makes my machine run smooth and games play really clear with out skipping frames.
Cons: None. Crucial is always the way to go with it comes to Flash memory or RAM.
Overall Review: I took out the module for installing an Intel gaming memory I got out of an Alienware. This memory out preformed the Alienware memory even though they both run at 1600MHz.
Great Features but has draw backs.
Pros: This board is great if your very technical and read and research. It has AMAZING overclock features from the processor, videocard, memory and even fans. As well as all the other things you would expect from any motherboard now a days. As I would normally expect from a Z77-K series motherboard this one really impressed me on just how customizable it is.
Cons: -The machine has no DVI or VGA ports but that's known before even buying. (no eggs taken for this) -What was a surprise though is that this board is incredibly picky about what monitor you hook it up with because the HDMI encryption is out of date and needs a bios update to fix that, from what I read however that results in loop BIOS. -The board is now revoked from newegg and is no longer sold or supported.
Overall Review: Though the features of this board balance out the technical knowledge needed to know how to manage its picky needs I think this board could have done better for the price. There are other boards that have all the same features for same price with out the HDMI as the only source of practical video output. I would have expected a lot more from Intel in the design of the board. I do not regret the purchase but next time I think I will go with GIGABYTE.
Amazing Value!
Pros: The processor is just simply amazing for the value. It can OC up to 4.5GHz and still run cool. Barely generates any heat at all running idle and minor tasks. I am using the default Intel heat sink. HD 4000 Graphics is a nice perk if your not going with additional video card.
Cons: None so far.
Overall Review: Build: This build was very well balanced each part listed was designed to over clock with the BIOS and each part was K/OC edition. Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Intel BOXDZ77BH55K LGA 1155 Intel Z77 GIGABYTE GV-N660OC-2GD GeForce GTX 660 2GB Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB