Pros: Surprisingly low power consumption for a six-core chip. Overclocks while --under--volting, and overclocks even higher at stock voltage with the stock cooler. I upgraded from a dual-core CPU, so video encoding times are much much better! This CPU also supports certain instruction sets that previous Athlon II/Phenom II CPUs lacked, but that my software plugins supported. Now I can use them!

Cons: Cool'n'Quiet, C1E, and C6 all needed to be disabled, otherwise the CPU clock would SEVERELY throttle even during something as simple as an HD video, resulting in skipped frames and stuttering audio. Curiously, disabling all this had no effect on power consumption, nor temperature. But it was bothersome to figure out.

Overall Review: I'm only a casual gamer and I only edit videos as a hobby, so the performance of this CPU is more than adequate for my needs.

Pros: It can use your Boot Camp partition, giving you the best of both worlds: run Windows applications seamlessly within Mac OS X, while keeping the option to boot into Windows for full hardware acceleration in the most demanding games. The Full Screen mode is properly integrated with Mountain Lion, and Coherence is easy to switch to. Everything just works.

Cons: It's not made clear how to go about activating Windows in Parallels if you've previously activated in Boot Camp. I had to call Microsoft (it's an automated process, use the dial pad to enter the code that you get in the activation control panel inside Windows).

Overall Review: Some games (Darksiders II, Saints Row The Third) have noticeably reduced performance in Parallels compared to Boot Camp, but that's what makes the one-install-two-ways-to-run feature so great. For most apps - even games - I don't notice a performance hit. For example, League of Legends on my Retina MacBook Pro has no problems under Parallels.

Pros: Nothing is complicated about it. The pre-installed fan is surprisingly quiet.

Cons: Absolutely no frills. Can only mount 80mm fans.

Overall Review: The case is extremely light, with thin walls. It's not falling over or anything, and it's going under a desk where it won't be moved until it's time to scrap the machine. It's adequate for my needs.

Pros: Low-profile heatspreaders still fit in my MacBook Pro. Recognized instantly, no compatibility issues.

Cons: No case badge.

Overall Review: I have been exclusively using G.Skill memory for my own PCs for at least five years now, and I've never had an issue. What drew me to G.Skill in the first place was the low incidence of failures, and their reputation for addressing failures quickly and satisfactorily.

Pros: Low-voltage, 1600 is the "sweet spot" before memory frequency starts hitting diminishing returns. I've been buying G.Skill for years now and never had a problem.

Cons: The heatsinks are a little awkward to handle when installing the memory, and I don't have a windowed case so I'm never going to benefit from their appearance.

Pros: Cool-running and low-power. Even stress-testing hasn't pushed it past 64 C. Excellent performance for the amount of power it draws.

Cons: There are a few games that are very fickle when it comes to ATI/AMD cards and drivers. Sadly, they occasionally crash with the only drivers that currently support the 7000-series. My older Radeon cards had drivers I could roll back to for compatibility.