Joined on 05/10/08
Sapphire R9 280 384bit, 3GB DDR5
Pros: A great card for the money! With the high prices of the up-scale cards going through the roof, this mid-range card is welcomed. The base performance is very good, and it will easily run overclocked at 1000+mz. In my Cooler Master HAF 932 case. Temperatures were already below average, so an extra few degrees at peak power isn't a negative. This is the seventh Sapphire Card I've purchased, and as long as you follow the install directions, you should have no problem. I've fixed a few "bad" cards for other people by first uninstalling the old drivers first!
Cons: No cons, based on my previous experience, Sapphire makes great video cards at decent prices. You get what you pay for. If you want to play the super games on three monitors at ultra high settings then you need a more powerful and expensive card.
Overall Review: The card looks great, but once inside the case you can't see it. Why is the ugly side all we ever get to see? Some day a video card manufacturer will make a card that looks good "right side up" !
HP never again!
Pros: When it worked, it wortked fine.
Cons: After one year of faultless operation ity began to screw up. First Windows-7 thought every print job was a fax, this took a complete re-install of software to resolve. Then a month later it stopped printin! It was working, would print test sheets etc. but not actually print anything from Windows. Complete re-install of software, new ink, new usb cable, and more testing and still no printing.
Overall Review: I'm sick and tired of the runaround from HP. After buying HP exclusively I'll never buy another HP product again. When I hit control-P, I expect my printer to work, without fail, without question. When I contact a company's servivce department I expect answers, and yes the printer is plugged in and the drivers are up to date.
AMD Fx-8350
Pros: Best bang for the buck and the CPU runs everything just fine on a Asus Sabertooth MoBo with Ripjaws16g-1600 memory.. Will auto overclock to 4.3ghz with the stock cooler. I'm using the Corsair H100 cooler with the stock 200mm fans in my Cooler Master HAF-932, I've run up to 4.8ghz using the AMD program. Once over 4.8g the fans really dial up and things start humming. But since I have no programs or games that stress it, I leave it on auto tune.
Cons: None so far.
Overall Review: Forget about power consumption! Just cooking a breakfast of bacon and eggs on my electric stove is equal to my PC running for 40 hours non-stop!
Sapphire R9 290 4g
Pros: Excellent card for the money and Sapphire build quality is tops, so why pay more?. Runs quiet and cool OC'd at 1100 with no problem. Uses far less power then my electric stove, coffee maker, or microwave and produces very little heat compared to them as well. If your card is running hot, check out your case airflow first or else dial the card back a notch or two.
Cons: Stupid rebate! This is the third Sapphire card this year and I'm still waiting for three different rebates! I normally don't buy anything with a rebate attached, but the price was right even without it. Please stop with the rebates, just knock off another ten dollars and we'll all be a lot happier! Can NewEgg do something about this?
Overall Review: The card looks small in my Cooler Master HAF 932 case which is one reason it runs cool. Even though I can afford to pay more, I don't believe in over spending on anything that will be obsolete in two or three years!
It's huge!
Pros: It's huge! I mean, HUGE! My new Sabertooth MB looks puny in there, and you can barely see the wiring. Fans are very quiet! I love the cover over the on/off switch, no more accidents! Love the front facing ports, easy to see and use.
Cons: The side fan hooks up to the motherboard directly, they should make a two piece plug so you can hook it up easier once your video card is installed. Dust filters are a joke, as they are on all cases. I got a pair of pantyhose from my GF and cut up pieces and used tape to hold them in place. Much more efficient and easier to clean! I also put a piece of Filtron, washable filter material under the PS. It's available at auto parts stores.
Overall Review: Newegg sent the case via UPS, but instead of 4-5 day delivery I got it in 3 days! The mother board was sent by FedEx, which delivered it to the post office in 4 days, who then brought it to me the next day. FedEX is great for documents, but for bulk packages, why not skip them and just send everything via the post office for a 4-5 day delivery?
Asus Sabertooth R2.0
Pros: Wonderful board, lots of features. Asus is really on the ball with 8 sata ports, I have 4 HDs and 2 CD-DVD-RW so I needed the extra ports. Love the 4 pin fan connectors!
Cons: I wish the sata ports were marked better, as you need to have your C:/ drive in the right port for the bios to find it.. Once I had windows up and running I changed my driver letters and now there is no problem booting. Everything worked perfectly except for the sound!
Overall Review: There was no sound output at first. Checked and double checked everything. Windows said everything was fine, Asus bios control was fine. Software drivers up to date and loaded properly. Looked it up on forums and saw others had the same problem but no solution I hadn't already tried.. Then just for the heck of it I plugged in my earphones and heard sound! When I unplugged the phones sound came from the speakers! What happened? I don't know, it's as if the hardware had been asleep and I woke it up! Now the board works 100% perfect !!