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James W.

James W.

Joined on 10/25/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Great card for the money

MSI GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N570GTX-M2D12D5
MSI GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N570GTX-M2D12D5

Pros: 570 for a 560ti Price. 480 processor cores vs 560ti's 384 processor cores. Runs all my games 7-10fps avg faster than 560ti OC'ed

Cons: Had to do a bios flash because of artifacting out of the box but based on the reviews on this card I was prepared for that. It was very easy to do. MSI tech's E-mailed me a self running batch file that took care of it right in windows.

Overall Review: I've never had any issues with Nvidia cards until I got into the new Nvidia 5 series. I started out with a MSI 560ti SOC that worked awesome for the first 3 months then it started artifacting. 2 RMA's later they sent me one of these but the OC'ed addition because I refused a 3rd 560ti as an option. I must say it was a pain going so long without a decent video card but MSI cross-shipped for me and there tech's where very helpful when I called about the issue with this card. I've owned several MSI Nvidia cards in the past 6600gt, 6800gt, 7800gt, 8800gtx, gts250, and never had an issue. So when I buy a video card my first choice is to go MSI, and I'm glad I did because they took care of me.

10/19/2011
Most Critical Review

Not worth the money

ZALMAN VF3000F(GTX580/570) EBR Bearing Dual 92mm Fans, FanMate 2, IHD Technology for Nvidia Fermi GTX580/570 VGA Cooler
ZALMAN VF3000F(GTX580/570) EBR Bearing Dual 92mm Fans, FanMate 2, IHD Technology for Nvidia Fermi GTX580/570 VGA Cooler

Pros: Built solid, nice heat pipes, memory heat sink is nice, runs quiet on high fan speeds, looks cool.

Cons: Fan connector plug doesn't connect to the vga fan connector plug and I was aware of that as I have bought many Zalman coolers in the past, but this cooler is not universal and is made to work on 2 video cards only, the 570 and 580 which have the same 4 pin fan plug. You would think that Zalman would make the fan plug to match that card, especially for the price that it is. With out connecting the fans to the card you cannot see the fan speed or have it auto adjust to card temps in my over-clocking software. The thermal grease they include with this is terrible. It is thick and clumpy and had to work with when applying it to some very small VRM's. It took about 1 hour + to install.

Overall Review: I have a reference N570GTX and the stock cooler is loud but it cools the card good. Stock temps are 34 idle and 59 under load with the fan hitting 80%, the Zalman on Hi 100% was 31 idle and 56 under load but if I put the stock cooler as loud as it is, {and it's loud} at 100% I run 31 idle and 52 under load, so other than a dramatic noise reduction this cooler is not even close to being worth the price it is and for the amount of work it was to install. So unless your stock cooler takes a dump, save your money.

10/10/2011

Awesome Memory

XPG 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model AX3U1600GB2G9-2G
XPG 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model AX3U1600GB2G9-2G

Pros: Great price, great performance, cool look, low profile heat sink for those using after market CPU coolers that over lap memory slots on your motherboard, a must.

Cons: none

Overall Review: I bought this memory over a year ago for a gaming rig I was building and it works great. I was a little leery at first because I never heard of ADATA brand before and only had expirence with Mushkin and Kingston memory but when you're on a budget price matters but you don't want to sacrifice for performance. I didn't with this memory for sure. I'm going to buy this memory again for future builds and expansions.

10/19/2011

Really nice monitor

HANNspree By Hanns-G HF225DPB Black 21.5" 5ms  Full HD WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 X-Contrast 30,000:1 (1000:1)
HANNspree By Hanns-G HF225DPB Black 21.5" 5ms Full HD WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 X-Contrast 30,000:1 (1000:1)

Pros: 1900 x 1080 resolution, nice anti-glare screen, really nice picture out of the box. Worth every penny of $99.00 on sale with promo code and free shipping.

Cons: none

Overall Review: I upgraded my gaming pc monitor with this. Going from 19" Westinghouse 1800 x 900 res. to this 21.5" 1900 x 1080 made a big difference. I've been shopping for a 23" but there aren't any even close to this price range unless you go refurb but those always get mixed reviews and I've had my fill of RMA's for a while. Really glad I made this purchase.

10/14/2011

MSI N560GTX-Ti

MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC

Pros: Nice card. Built way better than EVGA and Gigabyte cards. Just holding it in your hands you can feel how solid it is. I prefer MSI brand over any other VGA brand. I've owned alot of them over the years (6600gt, 6800gt, 8800gt, gts250)and never had a problem, ever. Stock settings 880 core 2100 memory benchmarked using MSI kumobuster 79-82 fps. Overclocking memory alone from 2100 to 2300, it went to 83-87fps. Uping core voltage from 975-1062 was able to overclock core to 1020 but temps went up from 54c to 63c and got 85-88fps, so not much gain overclocking core to 1020 vs 880 stock. I noticed the same thing with my Stock overclock MSI GTS250. the Stock core overclock setting seems to be where the max core needs to be, just uping the memory freq. needs to be tweeked for maximum performance.

Cons: Not a con but I wish SLI compliant vga cards came with a SLI bridge cable. 100mm flex would be universal for any application I would think. I never got a bridge with my MSI motherboard because I bought it open box from Newegg but I'm dieing to SLI my MSI GTS250 with this 560 to try out the new Nvidia PhysX.

Overall Review: I went from an MSI SOC 1 gig GTS250 that ran all my games like BFBC2, Mafia 2 on high settings 16x at about 29-35fps. I borrowed my friends EVGA 1 gig GTX460se thinking it should be a sugnificant difference in performance but it only went to 35-40fps, with this I'm getting 59-62fps. An increase of 5fps with a 460se to an increase of 27fps with the 560Ti it's worth the extra $80 differance between the two to go with the 560 and this is the one you want. I would defenitly buy this card again.