Pros: -One of the least expensive 7970's out there. Catch it on sale and with rebates you can get it for the cost of a 7950. -Runs EXTREMELY quiet. I've read reviews where some say it's quiet, some say it's loud, and I can tell you by comparison to some other 7970 models, it's very quiet (even at 100% fan speed). -Comes with lots of extra accessories, and even an HDMI cable! -OC's very well (see other thoughts). -Came well packaged. -Even with a decent overclock, temps stay in the high 60's low 70's (there are other factors that affect temps though as well, ie. case airflow, ambient temps etc). -Full voltage control over core and memory.

Cons: -Hot air is dumped into case rather than exhausted out the rear of the tower. I don't think there are currently any 7970's that do this. It's a feature I would have like to have seen available with any of the big name manufacturers. -The card is a little flimsy. A back-plate or spine would have been a very welcome edition. I can imagine over time that this card will warp slightly and I recommend bracing it with either it's power cables or some sort of jack. This was not enough to take off an egg, as only a few manufacturers offer this feature, and none of them are at this price point.

Overall Review: The strengths of AMD's Tahiti line of GPU's really lies in their overclocking ability. Stock clock on this card was 950mhz core, and without any voltage alterations I was able to hit 1100mhz on the core. With small increases to core and memory voltage this card has happily tolerated 1200 mhz core 1650 mhz memory. That's a 20% increase in clock speed! All while keeping quite cool and quiet. I switched to Sapphire's card after purchasing a far more expensive version of the 7970 when I realized I had not voltage control, the core speed was capped at 1125 and it ran really hot while doing so.

Pros: -Cheap -Does what it is supposed to do when its not DOA -6 PCI slots -No need for powered risers (with R9 270) -UEFI bios

Cons: -Quality control issues

Overall Review: A friend and I decided to build two mining rigs using this board and (6) R9 270s. My board has been running for 2 months now without issues (fingers crossed it continues to run). However, my friend is on his *fourth* board in 2 months. The first board wouldn't recognize more than one stock of RAM, and wouldn't initialize more than two GPUs. The next board came, it mined for about 3 weeks, then would no longer recognize any GPUs. The third board arrived, again, wouldn't recognize more than one stick of ram or more than one GPU. The fourth board has been mining for 3 days and we're hopeful is continues. Newegg has been very supportive and had even made mention at one point that they were receiving a higher than usual defective return rate on the board (which honestly would prompt me to put a hold on its sale until the manufacturer looked into the issues). I've got my hopes up that these boards stay alive for more than a month or two. But we are definitely at the point that if another one dies, we'll be using a different manufacturer altogether. I've not had much experience with ASRock motherboards, but I certainly won't buy another one again.

Pros: -Aesthetically pleasing to the eye. -Quiet. -Plays/burns all media specified. -No failures yet. -Loads quickly (for blu-ray). -OEM drives are nice because there's no instructions, boxes, cables etc to mess with during builds.

Cons: -Firmware Updates are cumbersome.

Overall Review: -As others have stated, no software is included with this drive. I use Cyberlink Power DVD 13 with great success. When Newegg has sales on this drive, it's a bargain!

Pros: -Runs 1866 without issue. -Lower profile. -Fast. -Reliable. -Looks good.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: This ram was low profile enough to allow the use of a Phanteks PH-TC14PE cooler without issue (on an ASUS M5A99X EVO board).

Pros: -UEFI Bios -North and South bridge heat sinks. It amazes me manufacturers in this price area negate installing these. -Price to performance/feature ratio.

Cons: -It's a personal preference, but I didn't like the card slot locking mechanisms. Felt cheap, but they worked. -No USB 3 front panel header. It surprises me to see a 970 series chipset boards missing something like this. Considering most mid to high range cases now include USB front panels. -This is not product specific, but I don't like doing builds where the motherboard only uses 6 mounting locations. It makes plugging in the board power connector precarious and causes unavoidable flexing in the pcb. -RAM location could cause problems mounting aftermarket CPU cooler.

Overall Review: Overall a good mid range board. I wouldn't expect to get much for overclocking FX processors (very power demanding) and wouldn't recommend so anyway without a 990 chipset.

Pros: -Fast and durable. -Piledriver vs Bulldozer (fx8120) architecture. -Price to performance ratio is very good. -Overclocks very well (see comments).

Cons: -HOT. -Stock CPU cooler is loud and insufficient for the processor. I know most stock coolers are nothing to write home about, but with the amount of heat these put out, I HIGHLY recommend purchasing an aftermarket CPU cooler. Even at stock speeds, the cooler is running almost 100% when under moderate load. And it's very noisy.

Overall Review: Every system/chip is different. I was able to clock this processor to 4.6ghz on aftermarket air with around 1.33 volts. Impressive results for this processor. This really is where AMD's processors get to shine. They are forgiving, and take a beating very well.