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Daniel A.

Daniel A.

Joined on 09/06/09

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review

Eyefinity Fix

SAPPHIRE 100924 Active DisplayPort to DVI-I Adapter
SAPPHIRE 100924 Active DisplayPort to DVI-I Adapter

Pros: This enabled me to use Eyefinity across my 3 24" Asus VW246H Monitors in 5670 x 1080 resolution using my Crossfire Sapphire 5870s.

Cons: These should come with the video cards.

Overall Review: I saw alot of bad reviews saying these do not last long I'm assuming because they are burning out due to heat. I have gamed on mine for several hours straight and the adapter does not feel hot, hardly even warm. It might be because its dangling infront of an exhaust fan which keeps it cool but I have not experienced any issues. I have been using it for several weeks now.

Bye Bye ATI

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card GV-N680D5-2GD-B
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card GV-N680D5-2GD-B

Pros: Runs cool and quiet with auto fan, Precision X Fan curve makes it even better Runs better than my Crossfire 5870s across 3 monitors at 5760x1080 resolution meaning higher FPS in BF3, Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, etc.

Cons: I got RSOD (red screen of death) a few times when launching monitoring software, more often when launching speedfan which I read is a driver issue, but you can ctrl+alt+del and it fixes. This happened 2 or 3 times on day 1 and 2 of ownership, I have not seen it anymore within about 5 days even if I try to recreate it myself. 3 monitor surround set up was difficult to get working, I had to close the Nvidia control panel and reopen it and set it up several times before it took my settings. After it finally worked, in games like BF3, my middle monitor would go black for a few seconds every time I would spawn or somthing would load. I am using 2 DVI + 1 Active DP to DVI adapter (would not work with passive DP to HDMI adapter). After about 30 min. the issue stopped and has not happened again. Benchmark scores in 3D Mark, Heaven, and Furmark are lower than my 2 x 5870s but FPS in games are way higher, I guess thats all that matters?????

Overall Review: Compared to the amount of driver issues I had with Crossfire ATI 5870s with Eyefinity, the 680 worked great, so it still gets 5 stars and improved performance. The few problems I have experienced so far fixed themself after about a day of use, it doesnt make sense to me how it would fix itself but Im not going to argue with it. I can play Witcher 2 across 3 monitors! I can finally spend more time playing my games than finding bug fixes and driver fixes that I was doing with ATI Radeon cards! Its dissapointing that the Gigabyte model cost more than the most others AND comes with less accesories with no significantly different cooler. I guess with them all being out of stock and hard to find, Gigabyte is taking advantage of those (myself included) desperate enough to pay more :( I prefer EVGA model but would take any of them at this point with them being so high in demand still.

Good for the price

Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 - Sleeve Bearing 120mm Red LED Silent Fan for Computer Cases, CPU Coolers, and Radiators
Cooler Master SickleFlow 120 - Sleeve Bearing 120mm Red LED Silent Fan for Computer Cases, CPU Coolers, and Radiators

Pros: Push a decent amount of air. They are pretty silent when kept at lower fan speeds (60% or less). The LED look awesome, not too bright in a good way.

Cons: Much louder than what the specs read at 100%.

Overall Review: For the price to performance ratio, these are great fans. If price is not an issue, I would recommend the Cougar Vortex over this one.

Why even ask?

ICO and Shadow of Colossus Collection PlayStation 3
ICO and Shadow of Colossus Collection PlayStation 3

Pros: -Shadows of Colossus..... enough said!

Cons: n/a

Overall Review: I never played ICO, but if it was SoC alone, it would still be worth every penny.

Best Total War!

Total War: Shogun 2 Limited Edition PC Game
Total War: Shogun 2 Limited Edition PC Game

Pros: -Gameplay -Multiplayer with Avatar creation is fantastic! -Design

Cons: The campaign map play was simplified a bit, I personally like this but some might see it as a con.

Good memory, good price

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL

Pros: -Worked with no issues -Color matched well with my Asus Crosshair IV

Cons: -None

Overall Review: I needed to change the RAM speed in my Bios to 1600 but the timings and voltages made their own adjustments on my Crosshair IV.