Joined on 03/27/06
MS 10 Pro
Pros: The interface is more user friendly then 8 or 8.1, I personally am not a fan of the modern Apps engines but it looks like we have to get used to them. This O/S does a good job of mincing the older more comfortable desktop interface with the newer apps engines, in a less confusing manner then 8 did. The system drain is minimal considering the interface. The settings are more user friendly for those with limited PC knowledge. Quick search system is fast and effective for finding specific systems, I.E. msconfig, regedit, disk management....etc.
Cons: From a tech standpoint the settings system is a bit too simplified and often you will find yourself drilling down into advanced settings to fix issues or set more specific factors. As a tech you will probably become very familiar with the quick search system. Updates are more important than before, and some of your VPN and VM systems will require troubleshooting to work with legacy systems.
Overall Review: Have migrated about half a dozen PC's to 10 so far, my personal is on win10 Pro. Overall its a good improvement over 8.1, some troubleshooting will likely be needed if you use proprietary software. Currently alot of programs haven't caught up to the O/S just yet. You may want to wait a bit until these issues get cleared up before migrating to 10.
Bad Physics engine....
Pros: 84W low power consumption. Works well for everyday computing. Single core performance is superior. Great for gaming. Native 3.0 USB Support 6x Sata 6GB Support and good intel controller.
Cons: only 16 PCI-E Lanes, limits PCI-E Bandwidth. Limited overclocking, anything over 4.5GHZ usually is unstable and only a small percent of die's can do better. Does not natively support memory over 1600MHZ. Supports but does not function in 3.0X16 PCIE still uses 2.0X16, perhaps this will be changed with a bios update or when Broadwell releases. but this would improve GPU performance by 12-20%.
Overall Review: My particular chip has a severely degraded Physics Engine, barely managed 4FPS on 3DMARK 11, Plan to RMA through intel but this is a very odd and frustrating problem. Most games use GPU to support CPU through physics but not all games do, when CPU Physics attempts to take over framerates plummet like a rock.
Nice Case, good layout, perfect size, one hiccup
Pros: - Cable management is outstanding for the size - Price point is good - This is the perfect sized case if your looking for something bigger than ITX mini but smaller than ATX, it sits neatly on my gaming desk and is big enough to show off my parts, but small enough and light enough to leave space and be easy to slide around - Comes with 3 fans, which is more than I expected - The Matte colors are nice and look as good as the pictures
Cons: - The thumb screws on the case are a little wonky, kinda like they don't perfectly fit their intended spots, can be hard to turn without a screwdriver - The side panel screws are fine, but the mounting system of the glass is poorly thought out. the tempered glass panel is not sitting on any mount point, and sure enough when i was undoing the screws it slipped off and bumped my table, despite falling less than an inch the entire panel exploded in a million sharp pieces, which was a ton of fun to clean up. Reaching out to NZXT to replace the panel, I am taking one egg off, not for the glass breaking but for the mounting point design which made this possible, if you get this case be very, very, careful when removing the side glass.
Overall Review: - This isnt a con because I kinda expected this but you don't get a fan controller unless you get the i model - overall its a really nice case, just need to improve the thumb screws and really need to improve the side panel mounting. EDIT: NZXT Customer support was very cool about the whole thing, they are sending me a replacement panel, adding back the 5 eggs for pro support
Great and well equipped ITX motherboard
Pros: - Has full 8 Pin EPS for 2700X which allows for up to 225W to the proccessor - Has a very good Killer AC Wifi onboard - Very good HD audio from Nichicon - Supports NVMe 2280 M.2 - Has 6+2 Phase Power, which is very good for an ITX board - Has Heat sync on the Power Phases and mosfets, which is rare for ITX - BIOS can be flashed from desktop, using software, so no need for the old USB Drive, why cant Asus figure this out? - BIOS is simple and straightforward, well presented
Cons: - All boards do this, but 4 sata ports is unneccessary in my opinion, you should not be running 4 hard drives in an ITX design, thats stupid. would be nice to get rid of 2 of those slots in favor of a dedicated AIO header, right now the AIO is shared on CHA Fan 2
Overall Review: - Highly reccomend this board to any ITX build and even in place of a mATX board, as many of those boards are not as well made and equipped as this
Got these for AMD on a theory, and boy did it pan out!
Pros: - Nice balance of frequency and TCaS latencies - Very fast performing, closest thing I have had to my Dominator Platinum RAM - Works brilliantly with Ryzen 7 2700X Proc (see note in other)
Cons: - None observed so far
Overall Review: - So I ordered this on a theory, knowing that Ryzen loves RAM but that its also picky about frequency, I did a little research into the diminishing returns of frequency increase and decided to opt for a 3000Mhz kit that had stable and low CaS timings to see how the Ryzen would do on a balanced fast cycle RAM kit, and it worked flawlessly, the 2700X is running blazingly fast and seems to eat up the performance of this kit. getting much much higher than expected benchmarks, EXP... On user benchmark the expected results for my setup were about 50% lower than what I am actually getting. There could be other factors involved, but the blitzing proc performance does definitely seem at least a little related to RAM
Performance per dollar
Pros: - Price point is fair for a 80 series - Uses Nvidia reference PCB, so any water-block for Founders Editions will work fine - Stock cooler is very good compared to other low priced variants, and is only 2 slots height - Runs cool and manages its factory boost just fine, performs very well under load - The LED colors are actually pretty color accurate, just keep in mind they are only Red, Green, and Blue - Build quality is very good, solid in the hand, the back-plate is pretty solid as well
Cons: - The see through shroud is not great, but this is a personal preference kinda thing - ICX can only show red, green, or blue LED, so if your using a color scheme with orange or something keep this in mind, Works fine for my Red and Black theme.
Overall Review: - The included back-plate is OK, not very aesthetic but is nice all the same - Keep in mind to control the card LED's use the Precision X1 software, Not the old XOC. easy to get from EVGA site and works well - Would highly recommend this card, as most cards use the Nvidia PCB and are not going to perform better, so why pay more for the same thing, this is a good priced card that performs very well