Joined on 04/26/12
Fast and Pretty
Pros: - Everything @ 60fps on high quality. nVidia hairworks? pfft don't care, turn it up to high and put it on everything and still churn out high fps. - very very quiet. Fans are actually off when idle.
Cons: - *requires* a 8 pin PCIE power plug. Older PSUs don't always have those.
Overall Review: - Dunno it this will help others who think they got a DoA card but mine required that I clear my motherboard bios (via jumper) for it to be properly recognised. Before that it was just "no signal" on the monitors and no beep of any kind from the motherboard. - "compact" design. At least when compared to GPUs in the same class with 3 fans or weird ridged shapes. While it did fit in a half tower type casing, I did have to remove the hdd caddy that was in the way. - non-existent accessories. All you get in the box is the gpu. Given that this is a high end card, you kind of expect to get a little more value for money.
A bit shorter than expected
Pros: * It is indeed blue. * and cat6, so it's somewhat future proof.
Cons: While *technically* 1 foot in lenght, it's 1 ft from tip to tip. The RJ-45 jacks on each end eat about 3 inches. So you're really left with a 9 inch cable.. It is a bit disappointing.
Overall Review: I have a bunch of devices sitting right next to a switch. Used these cables to reduce cable clutter.
Disappointing viewing angle.
Pros: Works with AMD Freesync as advertised.
Cons: - I expected better viewing angle. Maybe I was lucky with my old monitors but just moving my head to one side is enough to see washed out colours on the other side of the screen... - screen seems to be always too bright. This may be because of viewing angle issue. - Speakers sound muffled.
In one word, Sturdy.
Pros: * Solid construction (mostly. see other thoughts). Wouldn't put it the test by dropping it on the floor or anything but the frame has a nice heft to it. * Came with with windows 7 pro 64bit. I see that as a plus given that windows 10 is now the only option for new laptops. * 1920x1080 resolution, which even these days is only reserved for higher end laptops.
Cons: * slightly older model. * i5 struggles a bit with Google Chrome. I blame Chrome though. * only 4GB memory
Overall Review: Mainly used for work. Got it refurbished. optical disk drive cover just fall off when I took it out the box. Also the content of the box were bare minimum. Just the laptop, charger and one single sheet of paper with instructions on how to activate windows. No manuals or driver disk. But then again, that's not unusual for reconditioned items.
underwhelming.
Pros: it.. spins? I'll have to admit that it is quiet as advertised.
Cons: Doesn't spin very fast. Very low airflow. Not sure what the point is to connect it to a 12V line if it's going to spin like it's on 5V. The poor efficiency negates the quietness completely
Overall Review: Not sure if the unit I received was a dud or had a defect of some sort. And returning it would cost more than the price I paid for it so not worth it either way. My advice is to spend a couple extra dollars and get a better quality fan.
cheap but ridiculously noisy
Pros: It's on the cheap side for average performance.
Cons: It's very fricking loud. Not sure if it's a defect of this particular unit or if it's just how loud this model is usually. I needed a harddisk for an htpc system which is used to stream stuff from netflix and hulu. Even though there is relatively little hardisk activity when the occasional loud *click* is a bit grating. For a while I thought there was some serious audio clipping/static issue. Hopefully, it's something I can eventually put a mental block on. That or swap it out for a quieter hdd,
surprisingly fast
Ordered a hard disk over the weekend and it got on Wednesday, 3 business days later. I actually wasn't expecting it until Friday or the next Monday. Also, 3 thick separate layers of bubble wrap were protecting the unit.