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Adam D.

Adam D.

Joined on 10/07/11

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 37
Most Favorable Review

These Things MOVE Air

Cooler Master JetFlo 120 - POM Bearing 120mm White LED High Performance Silent Fan for Computer Cases, CPU Coolers, and Radiators
Cooler Master JetFlo 120 - POM Bearing 120mm White LED High Performance Silent Fan for Computer Cases, CPU Coolers, and Radiators

Pros: These fans have a lot of static pressure. Awesome for radiators. The look of the LEDs is sweet, since you don't see the bright glare from the LEDs: it just is a simple glow. The rubber mounts reduce vibration. Noise levels greatly reduced when using the included adapters. Those are an awesome add-on.

Cons: Screw mounting only works when bolting it to a case. If you are radiator mounting, you have to have weird 30mm screws. For a fan with this high of static pressure, I would have to believe that CM knows they would be used for radiators and would include them. Additionally, these things are pretty noisy at full power.

Overall Review: Great fan, big power, good accessories. CM needs to realize that high static pressure fans are loved by water coolers, so throw in some black 30mm screws, would you?

Most Critical Review

Good PSU - if you have a short case

Rosewill RD500S, 80 PLUS Certified 500 W Power Supply
Rosewill RD500S, 80 PLUS Certified 500 W Power Supply

Pros: PSU has a lot of connectors! It has 2 separate cables of 2 SATA power each. This is awesome to run a cable to your optical drive and the other to your hard drive. Nice to have 2 cables for PCI-E power. You could run a nice little gaming system with a 7000 series card in this and feel confident that you have the power to do so. Looks clean. Cable wrapping is a nice departure from the cheap, thin black sleeving that is commonplace now.

Cons: Two complaints: 1. Cable length leaves a lot to be desired. I built a system in a Rosewill Challenger mid-tower ATX case. Standard case, nothing big. The CPU 8-pin cable barely reached. I had a small HD 6570 installed, and it had to run OVER the card and stretch to plug in. I could not run it behind the mobo tray. The 24-pin motherboard plug was the same story, although it managed to run behind the tray and plug in, although at full stretch. I found it hard to believe that a mid-range PSU could not fit in the company's OWN mid-tower case. 2. The blue LED fan is a nice touch. However, if you look at the pictures, the cables are off-set to one side. Therefore, to use the length of the cables, you have to have the fan aiming DOWN. This entirely eliminates the blue LED fan touch. If you put the fan face up, you lose about 6 inches of cable length, since the opening for the cables would be close to the door.

Overall Review: Good PSU, good Value. Loses a few eggs for simple touches that could have made a difference. Simple matters. If you have a smaller case (than a Rosewill Stallion), than the cable length issue may not matter to you. Similarly, if you do not care about the blue LED fan, then this PSU gets 5-stars for you.

10/28/2013

Awesome RAM!

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model 994093
Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory Model 994093

Pros: Great performance. Noticable gains over 1600MHz RAM. For $180, price is great compared to any other 4x4 set.

Cons: None

Does what it should

Rosewill RTK-001 Premium Anti-Static Wrist Strap
Rosewill RTK-001 Premium Anti-Static Wrist Strap

Pros: For $5, it's worth avoiding the risk.

Cons: No one likes a tether.

Good Card - Debatable Value

Galaxy 78XNH5DV8PXV G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 780 HOF 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card - Retail
Galaxy 78XNH5DV8PXV G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 780 HOF 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card - Retail

Pros: Card has great overclock ability. Card designed to handle high overvolting - I have card at 1.33v. While heat is high, it is to be expected when boosting above stock 1.1v. Fan reasonably noisy for full speed. White board looks great. Will look even better with the white EK Water block coming out at the beginning of December. Card looks great. I wish you could switch out the "Hall of Fame" LED wording. Like the concept: but I don't want "Hall of Fame" flashing in my case.

Cons: Several issues plague this card with great potential: 1. Downclocking. The card regularly downclocks to 863, which I assume is the stock clock for the GTX 780. Pressing the "boost" button on the back does not consistently prevent it from downclocking. Mid-game, it will downclock on me, dropping my FPS significatly from 49fps to 22fps in a matter of seconds. Unacceptable. 2. Overclocking software is overly complex. I regularly bought AMD cards. In AMD, there is a slider with the clock you want. It is that simple. In Nvidia, there is an "offset" slider which changes the overclock from the current clock speed. But with this card, since the stock clock, boost, and downclocking issues are constantly changing, the "offset" slider has a range of 196MHz. So your card can go from stable (overclocked from the 863 base) to barely stable or failing (at the 1009 stock HOF clock) to a blue screen or freeze at the boost clock speed (at 1059). This makes the card essentially non-overclockable, or unreliably overclocked. 3. The "boost" button. I am convinced this is a marketing gimmic. If this really prevented downclocking, or activated "extra circuitry", why in heaven's name would it be a button on the back of the case? It would be a software activated piece. No one uses buttons, let alone on the back of the case, for something that you know 90% of your card buyer's are going to use extensively. It is just impractical. Therefore, I am convinced that the button is just a "100% fan" activation button.

Overall Review: Card has great potential. A simple bios push to prevent downclocking would nearly solve all of the problems. I can accept that the button on the back is useless. Doesn't bother me. If the downclocking stops, then my first 2 complaints are solved and I am willing to overlook the 3rd complaint. Until this is done, users are reliant on attempting risky bios pushes. Some forums have a user posting bios push from a Hydro Copper which prevents down clocking. Appears to be working for people, but there is big risk here, and we should not have to be doing this as a way to get the card to work as advertised. As usual, Galaxy sends hand-picked cards to the reviewers before releasing it to the public. Several sites and groups reviewed this card without a single issue, likely because (some) promote Galaxy products, and the others were given hand-picked and tested cards to ensure the review goes well. I am sure most manufacturers do this regularly, but when the difference in the review and your experience is THIS different, you begin to look for all problems present. Galaxy - just push a bios fix to prevent down clocking and/or down volting. If a regular user on a forum can tweak a bios from another card to do this, certainly, you can too. Until this is done, I cannot recommend this card. If addressed, this card will be an amazing GPU and well worth the $40 more than a stock GTX 780.

11/14/2013

Great case for $40!

NZXT Source 210 S210-001 Black “Aluminum Brush / Plastic” ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
NZXT Source 210 S210-001 Black “Aluminum Brush / Plastic” ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Great case. Good color and look on the outside. All black on the inside gives it a high-end feel. Hard drive mounts are simple. Decent room on the back for cable routing. Pre-installed stand-offs. 100% happy.

Cons: At $40, with these features, you shouldn't have a complaint unless it was damaged.

10/31/2013