Joined on 10/14/04
Good little board that can be used with FX series
Pros: A nice micro-ATX form that is well built. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it gets the job done. You get what you pay for, and for the price I think this was a good purchase. This BIOS version that this shipped with and the BIOS flash procedures are what hold this back from being a 5-egg rating.
Cons: Missing some of the current gen capabilities (USB 3.0, SATA III), but then again for the price-point you can't really expect those to be there any way. Also, the BIOS flash procedure via floppy/USB didn't work for me at all, and this board requires an updated BIOS in order to work with the newer FX processors.
Overall Review: This board DOES support the new FX processors (I paired mine with a FX-6100) but you do need a BIOS update before things get stable. I was without a compatible processor to do the update, but I was able to get the system stable enough to do the BIOS flash through MSI's live update software. I had to lower the clock multiplier down to 14x, then install the OS, then do the BIOS flash, and only then was I able to get the processor back to stock speeds.
Beware, and keep the old drivers
Pros: good feel and weight for righties, with excellent response time and tracking. With the right drivers this mouse becomes rating turns in to 4 eggs, and this is best mouse I have ever owned.
Cons: With Razer's release of the Synapse driver software users are REQUIRED to sign-up for their cloud service before you get access to all of the features on the mouse. There's no opt-out option, and you have no control over the mouse through the software until you sign-up. If you pay close attention to the terms in the software Razer retains the right to not only pull undisclosed information from your machine, but that information also includes PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION. Not using their software results in the basic mouse drivers provided by Windows. Good luck finding the old drivers on their website - those have managed to disappear when the Synapse software was released.
Overall Review: Razer made a stupid move in the way they setup the Synapse software and cloud service. A simple opt-out options would have been enough to address this problem, but they dont provide one. If you dont care about information from your machine leaking and without knowledge of how it will be used then this is a good purchase. Otherwise, if you have any concern about your privacy and the data on your computers then you need to look somewhere else for a mouse, as well as any other product type made by Razer (e.g., keyboards, headsets, and now laptops).
Avoid
Pros: Fast-ish, lots of configuration options, external antennas, and supports wrt. Has some additional native features (eg netstat) that I have never seen on other routers.
Cons: Initial guided setup is forced on you (no option for manual confit until after you go through the guided configuration). Oh, and it totally died in under a week. One night it was working, the next morning I had no wireless, and 2 reboots later I had a COMPLETELY DEAD ROUTER - no status lights, no wired/wireless connection, and no hope of a hard reset (which I tried 3 times). And all of this was after a total of ~144 hours of use (ie, 6 days).
Overall Review: Have the Asus support line on speed dial. Asus is known for motherboards and graphics cards - stick to those from this manufacturer and you'll be fine. In my opinion, the Wireless AC arms race between Asus and the competition is resulting in a major lack of quality control at the hardware and firmware levels. Wait a generation (or two) before making the investment.
old technology
Pros: Configurable BIOS for the RAID config on the card (it ships w/ RAID 0). Blinky blue lights to show power/activity
Cons: Its old tech, and you absolutely need a dedicated PCI-E x4 slot (or an x16 with at least 4 lanes available) to make this worth the investment. Even then, at max throughput, this will get smoked by a pair of modern SATA III SSDs (that is, made within the last 2 year) in a RAID 0 config.
Overall Review: I had this in a system running a pair of OCZ Vertex 3 drives in RAID 0 - peak performance eclipsed the 1000 MBps mark which is over 20% faster than the theoretical limits the RevoDrive can attain. A low-profile design would be nice as well, but not taking any eggs for that. Do yourself a favor and just get a pair of SATA III SSDs and RAID them. If this were written 2+ years ago I probably would have given this a couple more stars...
It does the job
Pros: Expandable backing plate out to about 34", which is slightly wider than normal wall stud spacing, making this easy to attach to 3 wall studs. The brackets do allow for the TV to be set at an angle up to 15 degrees. Mounting kit comes with a spirit level that also has a magnetic base for loosely securing to backing plate while mounting.
Cons: Instructions could use a lot of improvement. Whoever proofed the instructions needs to be fired from Rosewill. Ended up literally tearing the install manual apart and laying the parts of the foldout instructions back on the floor so I could follow them linearly (really wish I could post a before and after photo to show what I mean), so one egg there. The mounting angle range is limited to 0, ~7.5, and 15 degrees, so there is no full range adjustment that can be made for the TV viewing angle (loss of another egg).
Overall Review: Shipping could have been better. When I received the box it was pretty beat-up (not uncommon), but it was the lack of any type of tape on the box to ensure it stayed closed that concerned me. I had to count every part before getting started just to make sure nothing had gone missing.
Stable
Pros: Low cost, and had all the basic features I was looking for - 6 SATA II ports, PCIe for future expansion, and support for up to 16GB ram, all in a mATX form factor.
Cons: Only 2 DDR3 slots, but I knew that going in.
Overall Review: Using this with a dual-core FM1 and 8GB of RAM as a FreeNAS (8.3.x) box. Its been rock-solid since its been stood-up, and I did not have any issues with drivers. Was running 6x 1.5TB WD Green devices, and average CPU utilization barely spiked above 20% when transfering files.