Joined on 03/12/07
Great Bang 4 the Buck
Pros: Price and Card size.. Bought this card to be used in my Girlfriends Box store Dell computer temperarly untill I can get her a new machine built. Paired with her new 23" Widescreen monitor the colors are just awesome she says ;) This card will run most modern games at a decent Resolution and still be very playable. I'll probably buy a 2nd card after I get her new computer build to run In crossfire. This card also allows a decent overclock to squeze even a few more frames out of it.
Cons: None no driver issues as others have stated.
Overall Review: Untill recently I've had nothing but Nvidia Video cards, but I decided to give ATI a shot with this card (4770)and the 5770 i bought for my machine and have been totally impressed with them. ATI has takin over the video card market in my opinion especially the budget cards. If you do light gaming this card is Definatly for you. If you do Moderate gaming this card may be for you, if you have the extra $50 or so you might check into the 5770. If your into heavy gaming this card probably isn't for you, not that it can't handle it but i think you'll be more satified with a better card like the 5770. The other brand has cards that are compairable to this but not at this price or card format. Thier cards tend to be large, who am I kidding there huge which unless you own one of those $200+ computer cases will prolly cause issues with fitting in the case and most importantly cooling. If your looking to upgrade your Onboard video card this is a must, Low Power consumption, small card format.
:( DOA :(
Pros: None Yet
Cons: Recieved DOA. It would process the Turn-On signal from my MoBo. I checked a Rechecked all of the Connections and quadruple checked the on-off switch still a no-go. Oh well NewEgg is RMA'g it as we speak hopefully the next one is AOK.
Overall Review: NewEgg rocks the prices and the customer service !!!!
Moves alot of air
Pros: Removeable Fan Blades for cleaning. Moves alot of air.
Cons: When running full speed they are a lil loud not super loud but loud enuf to distrub me while watch movies in my HTPC. Added a Fan controller and dropped the rpms by ~200 and they arn't annoying anymore but still move sufficant air.
Overall Review: All in All these fans do thier Job well. These are some of the better 120mm fans out there they arn't the best but by far not the worse. A Decent value for your money.
Good Cooler
Pros: Compact Heatpipe Design, Cools Good And Quite. Dropped Idle Temps by 8 degrees and load temps by 10 degrees on a Phenom x3 720 with 4th core unlocked with stock speeds. Temps now are 30 idle and 38 Load running fan at 1700 rpms. going to OC when I get my RMA'd PSU back :( Fits on a ASUS M4A785TD-V no issues. Didn't have to remove Mobo to Install/Remove
Cons: All Copper would've been nice but cools good anyway. Tricky to get the Clips to latch on a AMD mobo.
Overall Review: Fits on a ASUS M4A785TD-V MoBo without blocking any Ram Slots. Just rotate Cooler 180 degrees so the heatpipes face the rear. All in All a great cooler for compact Cases. Cools well, Quite. Would buy again.
Asus = Quality
Pros: Its ASUS ;) Price, DDR3 support, unlocked the 4th core of my Phenom x3 720. Many overclocking options. Cool Running Board.
Cons: Board layout Could be better. Only 1 PCI-E 16x 2nd is only 8x. from my research that is only going to make a slight differance in performace while running SLI / Crossfire.
Overall Review: Even though the board layout IMO could be better, It all really depends what case its going In and what you plan on using it for. It's by far not a Bad Designed Board, just I had a couple minor Issues not enough to dock any eggs. I have yet tried any overclocking with this board as I'm still waiting a few more parts and allowing time for proper Burn-in of the CPU. After looking through all the Bios options it should be very flexable to overclock with, I even think it would OC my grandmother if I gave it a shot ;).
Smokin Fast
Pros: AMD Quality, 4th Core unlocked @Vstock, Decent stock Cooler, Runs cool with stock cooler w/ 3 or 4 cores running even cooler with a Zalman. I haven't Played around with overclocking yet, but through my research most of these 720's will run around 3.2 @Vstock with stock cooler and around 3.8 with a slight V bump on aftermarket cooling.
Cons: doesn't cook breakfast ;)
Overall Review: AMD is notorious for taking a perfectly good CPU and Locking it to sell as a slower processor to meet demands. I remember back in the day of the Athlon Xp CPU's of them taking Xp2600 CPU and locking and selling them as a Xp1700. They stopped making CPU's under the Xp2600 but the demand was extremely high for the slower processors. I bought 3 of those and each was a OC machine. Taking them from 1466mhz stock up to 3400mhz running them on Air cooling. Any way there is no guaranty that every 3 core CPU can be unlocked and run stable, It would be a good bet that it can be. Most of your SB710 and SB750 boards will have the options to unlock the cores. I did it with a ASUS M4A785TD-V Evo . It took all of 10 sec. to do. AMD may not be as Fast as Intel but you get alot more bang for your buck with AMD. Will post back with my OC later. Buy Buy Buy