Joined on 07/08/10
Great CPU for the money
Pros: - Great for overclocking - Great CPU for the price - Great for heating my man-cave in the winter
Cons: - Slower compared to intel in single threaded tasks - AM3+ only supports pcie 2.0 - Heatsink isn't great for overclocking - Requires a lot of power
Overall Review: I'm on my second 8320. I bought a new motherboard and broke off a pin on my first one trying to get the heatsink off (broken heatgun [hair dryer] and impatience resulted in terrible consequences). This cpu was running well with an overclock of 4.4Ghz. Could go higher, but 4.4 was sufficient. Runs pretty hot with stock heatsink, but runs pretty cool with third party water cooler.
Great Baord
Pros: - No outdated PCI slots to waste space - Easy to OC - Decent/Easy to use BIOS
Cons: - Color Scheme - My build is Black and Green. Most of the red is hidden once slots are filled. Unfortunately there aren't any Z97 green and black boards in the U.S. (Gigabyte has one in the UK). - Not really a con, but required a LOT of force for my graphics cards to click into place. Of the many boards I've owned, this one required, by far, the most force.
Overall Review: Pretty decent board for the price. I didn't take an egg of for color scheme as it's purely subjective. Not a fan of AsRocks RMA policy, but I've not had to deal with it yet.
Pretty Good
Pros: - Attractive Design - Nice slot layout - Decent overclocker for having 6 and 2
Cons: - Dual gpus result in two cards at pcie 2.0 x8 - Not great for giant overclocks
Overall Review: Bought this to replace a hardly working Biostar TA 990fx. Spec-wise, that motherboard was supposed to be better. Ran into constant issues and bluescreens, though. This board is nice for some moderate overclocking, but nothing too crazy (even with watercooling). The slot layout is nice although two graphics cards = pcie 2.0 x8. The way the documentation read, I thought one card would be x16 and the other would be x8. Not a huge issue for 7950s, but could be an issue for more powerful cards.
Great, especially for free
Pros: - Wireless Bridge! - Sleek looking - No need to constantly reboot - Best free router ever
Cons: -UI is clunky -Not a fan of internal antennae, but I use it as a wireless bridge, anyways
Overall Review: Haven't used the wireless abilities on this at all. I received this router for free when I purchased the Nighthawk R7000. Was going to use it as a Wireless Repeater/AP, but coverage with the R7000 was so good I didn't have to. Instead, I have this stationed behind the entertainment center and plug our smart TV, consoles, and HTPC directly into the Gigabit Ethernet ports. Works like a charm, no issues at all. Used to prefer Dlink, but the last few routers I've used have been total duds.
Wonderful
Pros: - Dual Band works wonderfully - updating firmware is cake - sleek looking - ability to configure as bridge or wireless AP/extender - reliability (no need to reboot all the time) - got a free Netgear AC router as a bonus! -256MB RAM ***GREAT RANGE***
Cons: These are all minor, no eggs removed. - UI a bit clunky - takes a bit of time to update changes - Antennae come loose
Overall Review: I bought this when Newegg was giving away a Netgear N6200 AC router with it. I was on a terrible Dlink DIR-657 router with a linksys WRT54g as a wireless extender. That router would disconnect at least once a day from the day I first pulled it from the box. I've only had to reset this router a few times and that was due to old cable modem. The router has been great; it's reliable and I get service throughout my entire house (two story house and full service in basement and second story). The router I received for free was originally going to be a wireless repeater, but with such a large network footprint I use it as a wireless bridge. Not sure where other users are experiencing problems. Even with the stock firmware I've had zero issues (other than that ugly UI, but that's personal opinion).