Joined on 03/31/04
Decent, but Copper would be better
Pros: Fanless design, which replaced the noisy stock fan on my motherboard. It reduced the temp of my northbridge from mid to hi 65 C to around 54 C (under load). Excellent compatibility design. This should work with 99% of all motherboards.
Cons: The Aluminum is less conductive than a copper heatsink so the performance isn't as impressive as I would have liked, but it does its job.
Overall Review: Zalman should release a copper heatsink for the northbridge for those of us, which really need cooling.
HTPC - Solid Performance once I added RAM
Pros: * Quad Core processor * Upgradable to 8GB ram * HDMI output * Small form factor * Virtually Silent * Wireless N * Gigabit NIC * Excellent ASUS hardware design * Serial port for legacy
Cons: * Ships with 2GB RAM (60% used out of the box) * SATA II only. Most platter hard drives can't go any faster than that anyway.
Overall Review: ** Upgrade to at least 4 GB RAM or your ram will bottleneck your performance * Wireless N works well with streaming video such as Netflix or Hulu. It falls short when trying to stream HD from a local computer or file server. Use Ethernet for that. * Windows 8.1 with Bing is essentially Windows 8.1. The reason why this computer is so inexpensive is MS doesn't charge manufacturers for the license. *Be sure to run "Belarc" on your computer and record the results. It is a free computer audit program. It will save the windows key in case you need to reformat the computer at some point. New Win 8 computers do not ship with a key sticker. * Once the cover is removed the RAM, HDD, and MINI PCI-E slot are easily accessible. This computer is made from a single PCB.
One of the best cases on the market
Pros: I have purchased three of these cases so far. Excellent build quality *Great cooling *Water cooling support *Cables can be stored behind the motherboard to *improved ventilation *Hole in motherboard mount allows user to replace CPU *heat sink without pulling motherboard. *No tools required except to install motherboard
Cons: *Cable compartment could be a bit larger. I have had to jam unused power cables from the Power supply. *The cable issue can be mitigated by getting a modular power supply so there aren't as many cables.
Overall Review: Bottom Line: This is the best case for the money.
Works very well
Pros: Good transfer rates. Gigabit speed.
Cons: N/A
I have had mine for 10+ years!
Pros: *Very rugged design *10+ years *Batteries last a long time
Cons: If you want a light weight flashlight look elsewhere.
Solid Performance
Pros: 1680X1050 Max video settings in Fallout 3 with solid performance. So far I haven't been able to lag this card with any game at any visual quality.
Cons: Large plastic heatsink cover isn't needed. If this wasn't a waranteed card I'd remove it without hesitation. I have to use my lower PCI E slot because the plastic housing hit my northbridge heatsink.
Overall Review: For the Price this card can't currently be beat.