Pros: Very quiet and cool, even on air, at normal to mid-range loads. It has water cooling ability built in, which will cause temperatures and noise levels to drop greatly if used, especially at full loads, plus you don't have to spend money on an aftermarket water block or risk voiding your warranty. Extremely well-built, with a hefty back-plate to keep it rigid and help with component cooling. Easily outclasses my GTX 670 setup in the two benchmarks I tried (Unigine Valley and 3DMark Firestrike demo), scoring almost 50% higher in some areas. See Other Thoughts below for details and test results. Attractive appearance, with a slowly pulsating red ROG logo on the top edge. Green LEDs by auxiliary power sockets (8-pin and 6-pin) which turn red if your PCI-e cable is not plugged in correctly (a nice touch - the ASUS DirectCu II GTX 670 also has these). Streaming tool in the GPU Tweak software (I have not tried this yet). Came with free Watchdogs game coupon. Although my coupon had officially expired I was still able to redeem it and download the game. Stably powered in SLI by my 850W Seasonic PSU. Performed flawlessly in Kombustor stress testing and elsewhere, except for one glitch in one benchmark, which may be a driver issue (see next section).

Cons: There was a glitch when running the Unigine Valley benchmark, where occasional white flashes appeared on the screen - like lightning following the ground, as if it was trying, but failing, to paint a flat section of the landscape (not sure if this is a shader problem). Apparently other people have noticed this with 700 series cards, so perhaps it is a driver issue. Since it occurred with both of the Poseidons I tested, and they are unlikely to both be faulty, I hope this is the case. I never noticed it in the 3DMark tests, Kombustor, or any games. Price - All other GTX 780s cost less then the Poseidon (at time of writing), and some have faster clocks from the factory. Also, you could buy a GTX 780 Ti for less than $100 extra, although it might be of lesser build quality or cooling performance (even on air). You pay a premium for the Poseidon's extra features, and maybe the ROG branding.

Overall Review: It's quite a hefty, long card - check your case specs to see if it will fit, and make sure you screw it down securely at the case slot to avoid motherboard strain. Also be sure to plug in the auxiliary power connector to your motherboard if needed for running SLI. You'll definitely need it for more than 2-way. It's a shame the Poseidon doesn't come (as yet) in a Ti edition, but I think it was already in development before the 780 Ti was announced by nVidia. I was impressed by its performance compared to a fairly high end card from the previous generation (GTX 670, which performs close to a reference GTX 680 in some situations). Below are the results of the benchmark comparisons I mentioned earlier. [NOTE: I have 2 ASUS DirectCU II GTX 670s and tested them against 2 ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 780s in both single and SLI mode. Resolution was set to 1920x1080, native for my monitor] In SLI, the Poseidon came in the top 3% of recorded scores for the 3DMark Firestrike demo. This was in a rig with an i5-3570K CPU, mildly overclocked to 4.2 GHz on a Gigabyte GA-77X-UD5H mobo, with 16GB of Mushkin Blackline 1600 RAM. The graphics cards were not overclocked, and the Poseidons were not water cooled (that will come later, as will a more powerful CPU/mobo combination). Firestrike demo scores: GTX 780 (1) 8224 - better than 83% of all results GTX 670 (1) 5850 - better than 57% of all results GTX 780 (SLI) 12532 - better than 97% of all results GTX 670 (SLI) 8617 - better than 83% of all results Unigine Valley scores (Extreme HD preset, 8xAA): GTX 780 (1) - 62.6 FPS, Score 2620 GTX 670 (1) - 42.6 FPS, Score 1782 GTX 780 (SLI) 102 FPS, Score 4266 GTX 670 (SLI) 77.3 FPS, Score 3233 Noise levels between the two models were roughly the same across all loads and. quiet up to mid-loads, with temperatures up to high 70's C in the stressful benchmark sections. Even at high loads, fan noise was not objectionable and there was no whining. CONCLUSION: In my opinion, this card only makes sense to buy if you intend to water cool it, otherwise you are wasting money on a feature that will never be used. On the other hand, assuming you have that intent, you get a factory installed, integrated water block (saving you a lot of hassle and possible warranty issues), and potentially the ability to overclock better than its lower priced competition. Plus, it will look very nice in an appropriately-themed build, especially in an ASUS ROG rig. Because of its build quality, features, and attractive design, and despite the one glitch I encountered -- which I attribute for now to a driver issue -- I believe the Poseidon is worthy of a 5-egg rating. Peter L. 06/05/14

Pros: EDIT: NONE - See Other section below. I compared performance to my Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD and it was roughly 90% as fast on sustained sequential reads/writes (512/470 MB/s) with Crystal Disk Mark, and almost 75% as fast on random 4K reads at 30MB/s vs 38MB/s on the Samsung. Testing was done under Windows 10 on an ASUS Z170-A motherboard with a 6700K CPU.

Cons: Slightly slower than some of the more expensive opposition, though it would not be too noticeable outside benchmarks. Clamshell packaging was a nuisance to open.

Overall Review: I was given the SP S55 240GB SSD to review and it has performed to expectations so far. I cannot speak to long-term reliability as I have only had it for two weeks, but will follow up if the drive fails or I see performance degrade significantly. Depending on reliability, this would be an inexpensive and huge speed upgrade to a hard drive based system. You could spend more an a 'name' brand but this seems like a decent SSD for those on a budget. EDIT: As promised in my original review I am following up due to failure of the drive. I took it out of the system I was testing it in months ago and just yesterday went to install it as a boot drive in another machine. Booting off the SSD I was going to replace with it, the PC could not even see the drive. Two other SSDs I had stored in the same place were recognized and worked properly. I tested on another machine and it also could not see the drive. Due to catastrophic failure I am marking the score down to the minimum. I CANNOT recommend this drive any more.

Pros: 3DMark Firestrike score increased by 150% over a GTX 980 Ti (from ~16000 to ~40000) on my BIOS-upgraded X370 mobo with a Ryzen R7 5700X CPU. Firestrike Extreme scored in the top 1% of results, beating 2 x 2080 Ti in SLI. This is at stock speeds. Enabled my LG 32GQ850-B 1440p monitor to run at its full 240Hz refresh rate instead of 144Hz, which the 980 Ti limited it to due to only having Displayport 1.2. I was also able to use HDR via Displayport as well as HDMI since this card has Displayport 1.4. Installed without problems save for its width encroaching somewhat on the PCIe slot below. Looks pretty stylish in my opinion, and the RGB is subtle and can even be switched off physically via a switch. Dual BIOS switch (Silent and Performance). The cooler is beefy and works well - although benchmarking in 3DMark would see temps go up to high 80s at times, they would drop within seconds down to below 60, where the fans turn off. I can just about hear them when running at full speed in my In Win 303 case from 5' away, and there is no coil whine in my particular card. In games I can't hear the fans. Asrock Tweak allows fan curve control but I have not needed that yet. Came with 2 free games. I was able to redeem the code for The Callisto Protocol right after installation (they need to check for an eligible card in your rig for redemption) and AMD will send me the code for Dead Island 2 as soon as it's available. Note: This was a factor in my purchase decision as I wanted those games anyway. Of course, this bonus will not last forever. Comes with attractive Asrock anti-sag bracket that works well (see photo).

Cons: Requires three 8-pin PCIe connectors and Asrock recommends a minimum 1000W PSU. Luckily I have a Seasonic Prime Titanium 1000W PSU, which I bought several years ago for future-proofing, and this has the necessary cables and performance. Quite a high idle power draw with 2 or more monitors connected - The LG I mentioned above, my TV when I watch movies, and a 1440p Qnix 2710 (note: the last only has DVI input and since cards these days tend not to have DVI, I had to buy an active Displayport to DVI adapter, but I knew that going in). I had to remove my NVME PCIe adapter card in my 2nd PCIe slot as it would have blocked the leftmost fan on the GPU. The software to control the RGB (Asrock Polychrome) would not run on my Asrock X370 Taichi, but the RGB is subtle enough not to be distracting (see video) and there is a hardware switch to turn it off anyway.

Overall Review: I researched extensively before deciding to go with this card. One review site had the Asrock RX 6950 XT as the top performing card overall of the last generation, except of course with ray tracing games, particularly at 4K. Nvidia still rules in that domain. I game at 1440p and this card is more than adequate. The prices on competing Nvidia cards and the new generation cards were prohibitive, so its performance capability, plus the fact that it came with two AAA games, made this a compelling purchase.

Pros: Great value right now for a recent 8-core CPU Still holds its own in gaming and productivity Runs extremely cool and therefore works great in a silence-oriented build

Cons: Still not as good for gaming as an i5-12600K (although now much cheaper) AM4 platform is end-of-life

Overall Review: My R7 1700 was in need of an upgrade, and luckily my Asrock Taichi X370 was able to support AMD 5000 series processors after a series of BIOS updates. I first installed an R5 5600X, which was a major improvement, despite two fewer cores, but then when the 5700X went on sale for the same price I upgraded to the 8-core processor. My Cinebench R15 CPU score went from 1405 on the R7 1700, to 1807 on the R5 5600X, then 2249 on the R7 5700X. At 65W it runs cool and exceptionally quietly with my somewhat overkill Thermalright Le Grand Macho air cooler (massive, 7 heat pipes) keeping it in the 30's at idle. Installation was pretty straightforward, once the BIOS was updated to the latest version. It just needed to reboot a couple of times after detecting a new CPU. Although the AM4 platform is ending, this should keep my system viable for a few years longer at considerably less cost than having to buy a new expensive AM5 motherboard/CPU combo and DDR5 memory.

Pros: When I opened the box I couldn't believe how small this thing is, about half the size and weight of my current ATX PSU, yet still supplying more than adequate power with a Platinum rating. It installed like a charm in my Fractal Define R4 mid tower case after I attached the mounting plate. Note: This was only possible as it was replacing (for testing purposes) a Corsair RM850X, which has long enough (and more importantly, pin-out compatible) cables to reach the motherboard headers and peripherals in that case. The supplied cables are designed for a small form factor case and are short enough to route neatly in such a situation. They are also individually sleeved with no ugly capacitors, giving them a very nice appearance, though the sleeving is quite narrow, somewhat like CableMod aftermarket cables. On testing, it ran silently due to its passive (or Zero RPM) fan mode. My system includes a 4790K, a 980Ti, three hard drives, two SSDs, three fans, and several USB peripherals including a TV tuner. I would probably have to run SLI graphics cards to trigger the fan to turn on, but in a small form factor build this would not be an issue anyway. There was zero coil whine and the unit barely got warm, even after running benchmarks like Unigine Valley, and games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5.

Cons: Not cheap, but considering its 80 Plus Platinum rating and 750 watts in such a small package, this is not unexpected. Minor gripe: I had to supply my own screws (6) to fit the mounting plate to the PSU, but in a SFF case you would probably attach the PSU directly to the chassis. There is no way to turn off passive fan mode, although in my testing it was never necessary.

Overall Review: The SF750 was supplied to me by Newegg for the purposes of this review. I can't think of any reason to deduct any eggs. It has run flawlessly since installation three days ago - if this changes I will revisit this review.

Pros: Installed and tested without issue in both M.2 slots on my AM4 motherboard. Roughly four times faster sequential read/write speeds than a fast SATA SSD according to CrystalDiskMark. Temperatures were ok in my system in both M.2 slots, according to HWMonitor, reaching 62C max in the PCIe Gen2 x4 slot and 58C max in the PCIe Gen3 x4 slot (the latter gets some cooling from the CPU fan). No cable management needed, unlike regular SSDs. Just install and you're ready to go. It happens to match the black and white color scheme of my motherboard.

Cons: A lot more expensive than a regular SSD of the same storage capacity. While sequential read/write speeds are extremely fast, 4K speeds are not that much better than regular SSDs. In day to day use I can't really tell the difference between SATA SSDs and NVMe drives unless I am copying files from one NVMe drive to another (my boot drive is a 250GB Samsung 960 EVO). Copying to and from SATA drives will be limited to the SATA drive speed, of course.

Overall Review: Tested on Asrock Taichi X370 motherboard with Ryzen 7 1700 CPU (not o/c) and 64GB of G.Skill TridentZ RAM at 2933MHz. Windows 10 Pro. Here are the results I obtained with CrystalDiskMark on each M.2 slot PCIe Gen3 x4 read/write: Seq 2169/2394 512K 1496/2325 4K 46.55/140.2 4KQD32 311.4/202.1 PCIe Gen2 x4 read/write: Seq 1296/1369 512K 1058/1220 4K 39.74/90.86 4KQD32 178.4/132.1 I am awarding four eggs as I am not completely convinced of the value compared to regular SSDs. Others have given five eggs and I agree that it is worth that based only on performance. Note: Newegg provided me with the drive for the purposes of this review.

When I got the case, the package had been dropped somewhere along the line, and the corner of the case was bent in. I called to report the matter and they shipped out a brand new case, which this time arrived undamaged. I am very happy with their customer service.

I ordered a set of cable combs. Instead, I received a video card PCIe cable adapter for an Nvidia 3000 series GPU, which I do not own. On the positive side, I did receive a prompt refund, hence my 2 egg rating instead of 1 egg.

I recently purchased a Perfect Pixel Qnix 27" monitor from MNW Global. On inspecting it, I found a bad pixel in the lower left area of the screen. When I notified MNW of the problem they responded promptly, and after I sent photos of the screen, they offered to refund $50. As I did not want to have to deal with repackaging and returning the monitor, I accepted. The refund came through next day. I had previously bought a matte Qnix monitor from MNW (not the Perfect Pixel unit) and that one had zero defects. Delivery time on both was incredible - two days from Korea. Although I would have preferred a flawless monitor, I commend MNW on their attitude toward customer satisfaction and would do business with them again.