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Erik J.

Erik J.

Joined on 05/28/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review
PNY XLR8 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model D22GX64XL-5
PNY XLR8 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model D22GX64XL-5

Pros: Reasonable price point for stable performance. After three straight days of Prime95 and Folding@home testing I have yet to get a error.

Cons: none so far

Overall Review: The heat spreader makes the memory modules a bit tall, it might be a problem if the memory modules have to be installed behind a drive bay on a larger motherboard.

COOLER MASTER RR-LIE-L9E1-GP 95mm Rifle CPU Cooler
COOLER MASTER RR-LIE-L9E1-GP 95mm Rifle CPU Cooler

Pros: It's got the back brace that the heat sink screws into. The 95mm fan is quite while still providing good air flow.

Cons: Pre applied paste. Be careful not to put your fingers there by mistake or you'll need to go get new paste from a store if you haven't already.

ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Great bios options, handy software that comes with it to monitor temps and voltage. Great bang for the buck.

Cons: I had a difficult time getting the Windows XP and Windows Vista installation setup to detect the installed SATA and PATA hard drives. If you don't slipstream in the latest chipset and SATA drivers setup will not properly detect the hard drive size and caps off at 128GB. Use your old machine first to put all the drivers on a disc before attempting to install Windows on a machine with this motherboard. If you have two 2 slot graphics cards you will not be able to use the PCIe 1x slots at all.

Overall Review: I'm using the latest drivers from nVidia's site as of May 31st 2008 and so far I have had no video artifacts or problems with the motherboard. It is interesting to note that nVidia detected the chipset as a 650i instead of a 750i on their website.

EVGA 384-P3-N853-AR GeForce 8800GS Superclocked 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
EVGA 384-P3-N853-AR GeForce 8800GS Superclocked 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Pros: I was able to run Age of Conan at nearly max settings at ~90 fps average with two of these in SLI and a E8400 Core 2 Duo. When I say nearly max settings the only deviation from max is shader 2.0 instead of 3.0. Using shader 3.0 seems to be half the frame rate on its own. I'm pleased with the performance of these cards for the price.

Cons: The super clocked version that is advertised as 1900MHz for the memory speed is in fact actually clocked at 900 MHz. The card is very long; you will need a very deep case if you are going to fit it in with the power plug and a hard drive in a bay behind it.

Overall Review: My 8800 GS cards came with a fire sticker applied to them instead of the pictured green arrows. I think they actually look nicer then the green arrows pictured.

ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT 620 W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply
ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT 620 W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: Its modular wires and very quite. So far the power levels are very stable with little fluctuation.

Cons: They mixed SATA and PATA connectors on one wire. I would prefer separate wires for different types of connectors. I would also have liked to see slightly longer wires for easier wire management.

Overall Review: The cons are really just nitpicks but I'm going to knock the rating down a star for it. It's handled two 8800GS graphics cards and an E8400 for 72 hours burn in with no problems so far.