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Christopher A.

Christopher A.

Joined on 06/02/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Very very impressive

Cooler Master HAF 912 - Mid Tower Computer Case with High Airflow, Supporting up to Six 120mm Fans and USB 3.0
Cooler Master HAF 912 - Mid Tower Computer Case with High Airflow, Supporting up to Six 120mm Fans and USB 3.0

Pros: Huge, cavernous interior space. PSU mount on the bottom. Mesh panels on the front. Airflow in or out from everywhere but the bottom and the panel behind the motherboard. HDD cage with simple yet awesome rail mounts. Sturdy construction. It's an extreme amount of bang for not a whole lot of bucks, when compared to specialist cases.

Cons: Nothing major, but...<br><br>Steel instead of aluminum. One of the included 120mm fans (the front one) has been making impending-death grinding noises for about six months, but I'll replace it soon. USB 2.0 on the front panel instead of USB 3.0.

Overall Review: The case is somewhat bulky and heavy (when full) but that's not really a con as long as you've got the space for it.

Most Critical Review

Junk

APEVIA Black / Silver SECC Steel / Aluminum X-MASTER-AL/500 ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
APEVIA Black / Silver SECC Steel / Aluminum X-MASTER-AL/500 ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: Um... it comes with rubber feet... that's about it.

Cons: 1. The PSU died after three weeks. 2. The sides of the case were dented. 3. I found the plastic pegs holding on the front panel to be broken upon opening the box. I had to tape it on. 4. Cheap construction. I bought this case because I thought it looked sturdy but it is anything but. 5. The face for the optical drive doesn't fit with the drive I bought for my HTPC (LG UH12NS29), so I had to remove it. I will be RMAing this.

Overall Review: Spend the extra cash for a decent case.

Cool, quiet, modular

RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Power Supply, New Version with Build-in LED Fan On/Off Switch
RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-530SS 530W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Power Supply, New Version with Build-in LED Fan On/Off Switch

Pros: It keeps cool. It's very quiet, although I haven't put it under heavy load as it's for my girlfriend's computer and the heaviest loads it sees are Facebook games. The blue LED is a nice touch. And I love sleeved cabling on anything. It was also inexpensive considering the quality.

Cons: I haven't noticed any yet.

Overall Review: This is possibly the premiere cheap PSU, based on most of the other 5-egg reviews and my limited experience with it so far.

Bare-bones but works great

LITE-ON Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM SATA 12X Blu-ray Burner with Blu Ray 3D Feature IHBS112-04
LITE-ON Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM SATA 12X Blu-ray Burner with Blu Ray 3D Feature IHBS112-04

Pros: Simple install. Acceptable burn times. Autodetected by Windows 7 and assigned the stock driver, which works well enough. Haven't burned any coasters yet. I haven't had a single problem using this drive with ImgBurn, ConvertXtoDVD or AShampoo.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: Authoring or playback software would have been a nice addition, but this is a bare OEM drive and nothing more, which is why it's so inexpensive. I got the bundle deal with this drive and the Optical Quantum BD-R 25-pack (OQBDR04LT-25). I'd never heard of that brand before but the discs have been flawless so far. No coasters.

10/16/2012

Solid

HIS Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card H675F1GD
HIS Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card H675F1GD

Pros: Low power draw. Quiet fan. Shorter than previous mid-range gaming cards, which makes for a tidier case interior. "Advanced" config/settings that give new life to old monitors by making the display look brighter and sharper. Drivers are much more configurable than Nvidia drivers.

Cons: Overclocking the card even a little seems to cause instability, but there so far hasn't been a need for me to overclock it. After installation, I played Skyrim on maximum settings with the stock configuration. Then I tried overclocking it with the overclock utility that comes with the drivers, little by little, but running games while overclocked to any more than stock speed cause crashes. If OC worked better, this would be a 5-star review.

Overall Review: I replaced my 4-year-old Geforce 9800 GTX+ with this card. Though the comparison doesn't look like much, this card completely smokes the GTX+. Before purchasing this card, I was worried that the GTX+'s texture fill rate (47232 MTexels/sec), being much higher than a lot of cards I checked out, would prevent newer cards from making much of a difference. This card's TFR (25200 MTexels/sec), being almost 50% lower, doesn't seem to matter at all as every game I through at it was rendered quickly and beautifully. So the main lesson is that TFR isn't a good gauge to judge video cards by, I guess.

10/16/2012