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Steven P.

Steven P.

Joined on 05/10/13

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 10
Most Favorable Review

Simply the best

Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BK 140mm UFB (Updraft Floating Balance) CPU Cooler
Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BK 140mm UFB (Updraft Floating Balance) CPU Cooler

Pros: Alright so I got one of these and I loaded it up with 3x TY-143 fans from Thermalright. I got these fans because they're solid and they fit perfectly for this heat sink, combined it makes it the best air on the market, see other thoughts for more details

Cons: None at this time.

Overall Review: So it hasn't even been 12 hours yet. I've been running prime95 for 8~ hours on my stable 4.7ghz 2.255v (ultra LLC) overclock which before saw temps like this: Hyper 212+: 86-93-90-86 Phanteks + 3x TY-143's: 77-84-81-77 Keep in mind, it's my first seating and I didn't give the thermal compound any time to cure. This is the first boot and attempt. I can expect lower temps. Also prime hasn't broken those temps since early on. All cores are hovering around 65-70 now for the most part. I opened up a 2nd copy of a temp monitor about 30 minutes ago and the max it has hit in that 30 mins is: 72-78-76-71 Conclusion: This cooler with these 3 fans is insane, and maybe another re-seat or awaiting it to cure will give me high 60s and low 70s on prime95 12+ hours with 90% ram. This is very impressive for an air cooled non delidded 3770K at 1.255v (hits 1.272v cause of LLC) at 4.7ghz. Buy this cooler it's amazing.

Most Critical Review

Not bad but not great

Antec Eleven Hundred Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Antec Eleven Hundred Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Bigger than a mid tower. Nice enough looking case. Plenty of room to work with inside. Decent enough room behind the motherboard, decent enough fan mounts

Cons: Cheap side panel design. Plastic that breaks easily where you put the fans on. Stupid design of the side panel in general. Poor airflow and poor fans that come with it stock. I like Antec products and I realize this is a cheap case, but it doesn't mean I expect a total piece of junk. Fan filter on the front is useless.

Overall Review: I gave 3 eggs because it really isn't a bad case for the money, but I expected better airflow being that it's a super mid. My GTX 680's cook inside this thing even with a proper airflow setup and fans blowing directly onto them.

Haven't used it yet

Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-12G
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-12G

Pros: Looks good, came packaged in a box all on its own and is in mint condition, don't see why some other folks had issues, newegg did a class A job of packaging all of my items.

Cons: None at present time.

Great case with some minor flaws

Rosewill THOR V2 ATX Full Tower Gaming PC Computer Case, Supports: E-ATX & XL-ATX, 4 Dual-Speed Fans, 10 Expansion Slots
Rosewill THOR V2 ATX Full Tower Gaming PC Computer Case, Supports: E-ATX & XL-ATX, 4 Dual-Speed Fans, 10 Expansion Slots

Pros: Good case, large lots of room to work around, good air flow, insane cable management, comes with decent fans, looks cool and does everything it is supposed to. I upgraded from an Antec Eleven Hundred and I don't regret it. The case is simply better.

Cons: When seating certain cards I found that the design of the case was a bit off. It was a pita to seat my video cards properly where as in the antec it fit perfectly. That goes for my sound card as well. Not sure what the deal is with that, but once I got the cards re-seated and working, I was pleased. 5 eggs because I won't take off 1 egg for a little snag. PS: None of my grommets came off, the one that came close didn't either, use common sense.

Overall Review: Buy this case if you're looking for: 1) Good cable management. 2) Looks cool 3) Good air flow (but not "great") 4) Lots of room 5) Full tower

Terrible

ASUS PCE-N53 Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Adapter IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n PCI Express Up to 300Mbps downlink+300Mbps uplink Wireless Data Rates
ASUS PCE-N53 Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Adapter IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n PCI Express Up to 300Mbps downlink+300Mbps uplink Wireless Data Rates

Pros: It can connect?

Cons: Every USB adapter I've tried works flawlessly with my router, all my laptops, my other PC which is using some no-name brand junk PCI-E adapter. This one I bought because I wanted a quality Asus product for my wireless rather than an on-board. Big mistake, it gets 5-10mbit/s max and that's on a good day.

Overall Review: Do not buy.

Great cards

EVGA 04G-P4-3687-KR GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ w/Backplate 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
EVGA 04G-P4-3687-KR GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ w/Backplate 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: I have two of these and I suspect even if I had just one, it would run everything I have on maximum. I've never had a game dip below 30fps and most games play above 60fps. Witcher 2 maxed out ubersampling, two of these run it from 40-60fps at all times. BF3 is a joke for these cards, it handles it maxed out handily. Metro Last Light is the only game it struggles with on max settings and it still gets between 30-40fps. In other words totally playable.

Cons: The top card runs really hot even though I have great airflow, the bottom card however runs very cool.

Overall Review: I'm probably going to buy a new case and attempt to provide much better airflow for these cards, both with a better case and with much better fans.