Joined on 11/14/11
Niche product, but great for those who need it.
Pros: - PCIe x1 - Low power - Low profile - Passively cooled If you have old or non-existent onboard graphics or need more outputs and have no free PCIe x16 lane for whatever reason, this is one of very few options. Great for tinkerers with weird setups and home servers, and I see a potential niche in HTPCs too. Supports OpenGL4.1 under Linux and has a HDMI port, both of which I can't say for my iGPU.
Cons: - Price - Port selection Even buying it for a specialty use where performance isn't a top concern, it still stings to pay this much for a bottom-end chipset. "Port selection" is a bit of a nit-pick edge case gripe, but the DVI is DVI-D, so when used as a low-profile card you have to have to install the second bracket to get an analog signal. Really minor, but if you use VGA when debugging a little annoying. Displayport would also be nice.
Overall Review: The "push the limit" branding is standard fare for Zotac and the section on the back of the box on affordable gaming isn't unreasonable, but the four bullet points I consider big "pros" and set it aside from other GT710s are almost a footnote, which makes it seem like they're not sure where their niche is. They were running a promo when I bought mine where I got a HDMI to VGA adapter for free with purchase, which helped with the value issue, and helped with the port issue above which came up in the first week. Disclaimer: I got a card in the box from Zotac inviting me to leave a review and link them to it as part of the "ZOTAC experience program", whatever that is.
Decent board, awful support
Pros: At ~$120 when I got mine, it was one of the cheaper Z87 boards Decent selection of ports and headers
Cons: Automatic overclocking is a joke. Using it guarantees you're going to be rolling back to defaults to clean up it's mess Died at just over 11 months old Support has ranged from "trying to help, but encumbered with scripts and red tape" to "blame everyone and everything else"
Overall Review: Finally got some free time, thought I would give manual overclocking a whirl. Before I started, I decided to reset to factory defaults to clear out the various power-saving I'd turned on. Immediately after loading optimized defaults it stopped POSTing. Removed the power, cleared the CMOS, removed the GPU, removed the drives, shuffled the RAM around, tried someone else's RAM... no dice. Called support, was told that it was probably the CPU based on the case speaker not even giving an error beep. RMA'd the processor, still didn't post. Opened a warranty claim on the board. Earlier this week the replacement board came in, and two of the RAM slots cause a failure to POST when occupied. Called support and they said that they found nothing wrong with my board and sent it back, but the CPU socket is a different color and the S/N sticker changed, so what really happened is anyone's guess. They gave me a label to send the board back, but my new RMA number doesn't return a result in their online RMA status page, so who knows when I'll be back online. Asus is having support and QC problems. AVOID.
Good Specs, Few Rough Edges For Actual Building - UPDATE: DO NOT BUY
Pros: -Large, quiet fan -Hybrid mode is clearly labeled -ATX3.0 with 12VHPWR/12-2x6/whatever it's called now
Cons: -Fan grill is too large -PCIe power cables have a single 6+2 connector per cable -Non-sleeved cables -UPDATE: POTENTIALLY NO WARRANTY
Overall Review: Bought this during a sale in anticipation of a GPU upgrade later this year that will likely recommend a higher wattage PSU than the 650W unit I had and/or require the new connector. While this ticks those boxes, it doesn't feel like a clear improvement. The unit I came from had sleeved motherboard and PCIe cables, and daisy-chained PCIe power connectors so that for a GPU with an 8+6 configuration I only had to run one cable back to the PSU. This one nothing is sleeved, and the PCIe power is just one plug per modular cable. What I was *really* disappointed in was the grill on the fan. My case has a bottom-mounted PSU with no shroud, and I realized when I first installed it that the holes are large enough that even the big thumbscrews on my PCIe brackets could easily fall through. Ended up flipping this one so I don't have to worry about that in the future, but that means I can't rely on convection to carry the heat out the top in silent mode and it won't serve as an extra exhaust when the fan kicks in... and I'm just looking at a panel with a sticker through my case window instead of that nice pattern. It's not *bad*, but it feels like they so close to it being great and missed. UPDATE, 6/15/24: Deepcool has just been sanctioned by the US state department for shipping controlled items into countries under restriction, and as a result can no longer do business with US-based companies. This means their US subsidiary may be unable to honor warranty claims once the inventory on hand dries up, and Deepcool may be facing a forced exit from the US market. Even if they are granted temporary licenses to honor warranties and wind down gracefully, I would not take on that risk.
An absolute waste of time
Pros: - None
Cons: - Not new in package - Significant cosmetic issues - Doesn't seem to work - Total waste of time sorting out issues
Overall Review: So a while back I bought one of these from a different site, and liked it so much I decided to get another. HUGE MISTAKE buying this listing. What I ended up eventually receiving was a clearly used, cosmetically-damaged, non-functional unit without it's original packaging. If you get a real, new in box one it's a compact adapter, not the highest speeds but a decent value and one that I think looks good, and doesn't have bad reception for being so tiny... but that wasn't my experience this time.
Nice mid-range card
Pros: One of the cheaper 760s Enough performance for 1080p, even with a little AA in some cases. Blower cooler doesn't dump heat into my CPU.
Cons: Some QC issues with my first card. I couldn't afford a 770.
Overall Review: Bought it on release day based on good experiences with PNY's Quadro cards. Ran fine for awhile, then I started to notice it seemed to run hot and loud. I blamed the cooler. Eight months in it stopped working completely and I filed a warranty case. One painless RMA later I had a new-in-retail-packing card that runs cooler and quieter under heavy load than my last one. Kind of disappointing that it took that to get it worked out, but it means that it's not a defective design, it's a QC issue that (presumably) was fixed between my early card and the mfr date of the new card.
Worst marketplace experience ever
"3-5 day shipping from United States" 8 days in, and my package status is "waiting for pickup". USPS tracking number ends in "CN", which from what I've seen shopping online means it's shipping from China. Asked the seller what was up on day 6, and they said DHL packages were backlogged at the airport and asked me to wait 7-10 MORE days. They did not confirm whether my order was shipping from the US or China. They offered to refund my shipping fee, even though there wasn't one. I sent them follow-up questions and they've gone dark on me for what is now over 48 hours. Tracking status is still "waiting for pickup". I wish I checked their ratings beforehand, because this seems to be standard operating procedure for them. If Newegg has any standards for their marketplace, this seller should be gone.