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Eric O.

Eric O.

Joined on 05/29/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 69
Most Favorable Review

Works great, and compatible with MacBook Pro

G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-16GBSQ
G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Laptop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-16GBSQ

Pros: This RAM works well, as it should. It works with the late 2011 MacBook Pro, too.

Cons: Nothing really

Overall Review: I bought this for my late 2011 MacBook Pro, and it has been working great so far.

Most Critical Review

Died within 1 month of ownership

Seagate BarraCuda STBD2000101 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Retail Packaging
Seagate BarraCuda STBD2000101 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Retail Packaging

Pros: - Good value - Good price for the storage space - Decent speed

Cons: Possible reliability problems. Mine died within 1 month of ownership. Suddenly one day, my PC just wouldn't recognize the drive.

Great and powerful graphics card

ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DisplayPort USB Type-C Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RTX2070S-A8G-GAMING)
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Overclocked 8G GDDR6 HDMI DisplayPort USB Type-C Gaming Graphics Card (ROG-STRIX-RTX2070S-A8G-GAMING)

Pros: - It's a very powerful, fast GPU. Games seem to run great with it (so far). It's also very fast for general computing: I sometimes run some distributed computing projects with BOINC, such as SETI@Home - SETI@Home tasks for Nvidia take about 4-5 minutes to finish with this card (compared to about 10-11 minutes on the 1070 I was using). - It has 3 fans to help keep it cool (I've seen a temperature of about 44C under load, but I'm sure that can fluctuate) - It has a USB type-C port. Some monitors have USB ports supporting USB-C, and I've heard USB-C can be used for graphics, so it's handy to have a USB-C port built into the graphics card in case your motherboard doesn't have one.

Cons: - It's more expensive than some other graphics cards on the market - It's big, so it requires a fairly big PC case - It feels a bit heavy. I bought a support bracket for it to help prevent it from sagging & warping the motherboard/slot over time.

Overall Review: Recently I built a new PC and originally bought a Nvidia GeForce 1070 and decided to upgrade to this GeForce RTX 2070 Super instead. Overall it's a beast of a card, and the images it produces look great. It does high-resolution gaming well, though some games seem like they might stress it at 4K. 1440 or 1080 or elsewhere in between run well on this card though. I haven't downloaded the Wolfenstein Youngblood/Control bundle, but I've tried the Quake II RTX demo, Assetto Corsa Competizione, and Galactic Civilizations III. With this card, those games perform very well at 4K except for Quake II RTX. Quake II RTX seems a little slow at 4K, but ran much faster when the resolution was turned down (1440 and 1080 ran well). Also I didn't see a whole lot of difference when RTX was turned on in Quake II vs. off, but it did look very good.

Good set of features, nice overall (lights are unnecessary though)

MSI MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z390 ATX Intel Motherboard
MSI MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z390 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: - This board has a nice feature set, including a rear USB-C port, on-board AC wifi, and support for up to 64GB of RAM - Good layout, although if you have a long graphics card, the graphics card will be directly over one of the USB3 ports as well as the CMOS battery - The BIOS is nice, and even lets you save screenshots of the BIOS to a USB flash drive

Cons: The LED lights are IMO an unnecessary and useless feature. MSI's Dragon Center software supposedly lets you manage the lights, including turning them off, but that feature isn't working for me; I can't turn off the LED lights. I contacted MSI technical support, and at first they suggested removing the CMOS battery and clearing the BIOS, which didn't work, and the next step they suggested is for me to ship the board to them for service. I don't really want to take my PC apart for that and wait for the motherboard to come back. My PC case has a window on the side, so maybe I'll put some tape over the lights or cover my case window so the lights won't be so annoying.

Overall Review: Overall I think this is a good board.

Fairly easy to install, and keeps my CPU cool to a good temperature

Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing RGB 240 Edition PWM AIO Tt LCS Certified Liquid Cooling System CL-W107-PL12SW-A
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing RGB 240 Edition PWM AIO Tt LCS Certified Liquid Cooling System CL-W107-PL12SW-A

Pros: - Good cooling, better than a heat sink/fan: Without overclocking, this cooler keeps my Intel i9-9900K at around 70-75 Celsius (occasionally a little higher) under a load, and around 30 Celsius at idle. I haven't tried overclocking my CPU yet, but with those temperatures, I could probably overclock my CPU a little bit. Also, note this is during weather that has been up to around 35 Celsius (about 78 Fahrenheit) outside, with room temperature around 20-23 Celsius (68-75 Fahrenheit). - Quiet: This cooler is surprisingly quiet. I thought I'd hear some noise from the fans and the liquid pump, but it's silent (or near silent).

Cons: - Needs a case that has room and a place to mount a radiator. I tried 3 cases before I decided on one which had plenty of room. There was one case I tried where it barely fit (touching the motherboard), and another case that said it could fit a 240mm radiator, but one of the heat sinks on the motherboard was in the way of this radiator in that case.

Overall Review: I bought this to cool an Intel i9-9900K processor. I heard that processor runs particularly hot, so I thought it would be better to go with a liquid cooler rather than a heat sink & fan. I think this cools the processor to a decent temperature.

Decent case, but doesn't always fit everything

Cooler Master N400 ATX Tower with Front Mesh Ventilation, Minimal Design, 240mm Close-Loop AIO Support
Cooler Master N400 ATX Tower with Front Mesh Ventilation, Minimal Design, 240mm Close-Loop AIO Support

Pros: - The case looks good - It supports a good amount of fans, including 2 front fans, a rear fan, side fan, and fans on the top. It also supports mounting a liquid CPU cooler radiator on the top if you can fit one. - It has front USB3 ports along with microphone & headphone jacks - It has external 5.25" bays and an external 3.5" drive bay, useful if you still want to install an optical drive and/or an internal card reader

Cons: - The case isn't quite big enough for some things and gets in the way. For instance, the motherboard I was installing (an MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC) has 2 USB3 connectors, and one of them is angled to point forward rather than straight up. This case has a lip right there that blocks a standard internal USB3 plug from plugging into the front-facing USB3 port, so you'd have to buy a small form-factor USB3 extension cable to plug it in there. Also, I wanted to install a liquid CPU cooler and I'd have to put the radiator on the top, but despite this case supporting a 240mm radiator on top, there was not enough clearance on top for the radiator, and one of the heat sinks and a couple plugs on the motherboard prevented the correct placement of the radiator on top.

Overall Review: I ended up deciding to buy a different case for my build due to the difficulties I faced in fitting everything I wanted together in this case. If I were using an air CPU cooler instead of a liquid CPU cooler, then I could go ahead with this case and use a low-profile USB3 extension to get around the issue with my motherboard's USB3 connector in this case. Also, this case has a fairly common layout for the internal 3.5" drive bays, having them all in front stacked on top of each other. The problem with that is that if you have a couple drives spread out (such as in my case, with a 3.5" hard drive and an optical drive), if you want to only use one power cable with a few SATA power connectors, the STA power cable could be in the way if your CPU is a bit long. You'd have to re-arrange the components in the case or use 2 separate SATA power cables with your power supply in order to reach both drives without getting in the way of the GPU.