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Robert B.

Robert B.

Joined on 08/04/02

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 13
Most Favorable Review

Wear Protection

Intel Xeon E5-2687W Sandy Bridge-EP 3.1GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 20MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 150W BX80621E52687W Server Processor
Intel Xeon E5-2687W Sandy Bridge-EP 3.1GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 20MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 150W BX80621E52687W Server Processor

Pros: 8 cores / 16 threads, makes rendering a breeze. $$$ is high but you don't get what you don't pay for. Really lets crossfire cards breathe.

Cons: Needed a towel to clean up after the dirty tasks required to pay for this.

10/24/2013
Most Critical Review

Junk Product

D-Link DIR-651 4-Port Gigabit Wireless-N 300 Router
D-Link DIR-651 4-Port Gigabit Wireless-N 300 Router

Pros: Cheap and gigabit ports.

Cons: junk wireless chipset or firmware as mentioned in many posts below. I am waiting for ddwrt or something to flash to get usability.

Overall Review: Oh well worth the gamble at $10, but basically only useful to me as a gigabit switch.

Rock Solid

Linksys WUMC710 Wi-Fi Wireless AC1300 5GHz Universal Media Connector Bridge Adapter 802.11ac with 4-Port Switch
Linksys WUMC710 Wi-Fi Wireless AC1300 5GHz Universal Media Connector Bridge Adapter 802.11ac with 4-Port Switch

Pros: This is a great router. The 2.4ghz range in house is almost double that of old router (dual channel n TP Link). The supplemental Merlin firmware project makes this router almost the best of the best out there.

Cons: None with the router, but I am a little frustrated at the different ac standards, I guess my media pc has ac 833 from broadcom and just a little finicky. Not the routers fault as far as I can tell.

Overall Review: The ability to split 2.4 and 5 Ghz radios is nice to clean up crowded neighborhood spectrum.

Solid TV for the $$$

Changhong 50" 1080p LED HDTV - LED50YC2000UA
Changhong 50" 1080p LED HDTV - LED50YC2000UA

Pros: Cheap. This was on sale for $375 and I would say that it is a great bargain currently at that price. The sound from internal speakers is about average for lcd's. The picture is pretty good with HD sources (720 and 1080). Light weight so easy to mount.

Cons: No optical (spdif out) port so basically no multichannel out to a soundbar. Its not in the description so not really a con. Also sd content scaling is not the best. So picture a bit blurry when up-scaling. Finally the default color profile is way off, so you will need to calibrate, but again to be expected with a bargain tv.

Overall Review: Overall pretty happy. Looks good mounted on wall in the bedroom.

Pretty Sweet

ASUS G Series 15.6" Intel Core i7-2630QM 6GB Memory Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit G53SW-XN1
ASUS G Series 15.6" Intel Core i7-2630QM 6GB Memory Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit G53SW-XN1

Pros: This thing has an i7 processor, two hdd bays, 4 ram slots and a gtx460 graphics processor which is better than a 540 or 555 and some butchered 560's for those of you not paying attention. Couple that with a 1080p screen and this is a great laptop for the $8XX price-tag.

Cons: Well in response to previous posts there are a few issues, hdd partitioning is weird, why a 120gb os partition and a 330 gb data partition is beyond me. Easily fixable guys: Win7 has a nifty feature in the disk management were you can delete that 330 gb partition and then expand that to a 460gb one (your not getting the 20gb for the recovery partition back. As far as the keyboard back light not working, this is caused by a Win7 update. Easy fix is just clicking the led off button twice to get the lights back. Driver updates on the graphics card. Well you can get them off the asus website but they are behind the release. Luckily you can get a "hacked ini" out there to allow you to install the Nvidia oem drivers. Currently running the 285 version no major issues.

Overall Review: The size on this is pretty bulky, but come on not that bad and fits in my Swisgear bag just fine. The right angle power connector that you can buy would be a nice inclusion too. This is a pretty stellar deal, especially if you spend a little more and add more memory (1600mhz ddr3) and a second 500gb disk and raid 0, or a ssd boot drive.

10/13/2011

Great Little Box

Foxconn NTA350-0H0W-B-A-NA AMD A45 (Hudson D1) Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System
Foxconn NTA350-0H0W-B-A-NA AMD A45 (Hudson D1) Black Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: Tiny, and works perfectly for media pc hooked to tv. Plays HBO go and bluray rips at perfect quality. Put in 1tb 2.5" drive and a 4gb gskill ram chip and this thing is fast. Super easy to assemble, (4 screws). New adobe flash and AMD video drivers fix most of the issues from older reviews. Runs Win 7 Ult x64 great. Netflix (you probably need the Sliverlight 5 update to come out with gpu off loading to do perfect 1080p, but doesn't bother me, the beta is great)

Cons: The only con I can think of is that it makes my 600$ + "htpc" virtually obsolete (well minus the Nvidia 560 ti in it for gaming) But seriously but this for everything computer minus A+ title gaming and you should be golden. Bu know your device if you want gaming then you want the A8 3850 or the upcomming bulldozer platform.

Overall Review: This replaces my Silverstone sugo 05 mini itx, asus p8h67-i, i3 2100t, nvidia 560 ti, box... can't be happier for it's media functionality, and the lower power bill to watch movies :)