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Adam D.

Adam D.

Joined on 11/07/01

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 192
Most Favorable Review

Works well overall

Vantec 2.5" / 3.5" / 5.25" SATA / IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter - Model CB-ISATAU2
Vantec 2.5" / 3.5" / 5.25" SATA / IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter - Model CB-ISATAU2

Pros: Inexpensive, all connectors needed for 3.5" and 2.5" IDE and SATA drives. No drivers required. Worked with any drive I tried - about 10 so far, from an old 20GB Quantum ATA66 to 500GB SATAII. I tried two different brands before and they were picky about hard drives.

Cons: Flaky power connector, doesn't maintain contact if even slightly touched, must be bad crimping inside the molex plug. I'll have to fix this myself, not a big enough problem to request RMA.

Overall Review: Except for the bad power plug it'd be 5 stars: very useful gadget to have around.

Most Critical Review

Awesomely fast but has issues

EVGA GeForce 7950GX2 1GB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Support Graphics Card 01G-P2-N592-AX
EVGA GeForce 7950GX2 1GB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Support Graphics Card 01G-P2-N592-AX

Pros: FAST! FAST! FAST! Overclocks nicely (with lots of airflow) With Athlon X2 4800 I got 8045 in 3D Mark 2006 at 700/1400 and FEAR runs maxed out at 1680x1050!!! The best bang for the back and fastest single video card without a doubt.

Cons: Compatibility issues - read below :(( Hot, needs lots of airflow - not really a con considering speed but gotta mention that. Unhelpful phone tech support:(

Overall Review: The card is wicked fast But... it has some issues, that's why only 3 stars, average rating. For a $500 product this has too many raw edges. I wish I read the EVGA forums before buying, I'd have avoided wasting a day trying to get it to work... It has confirmed issues with some RAID controllers. In my case the on board Silicon Image PCI SATA RAID on the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. It has to be turned off, it just doesn't work with this card, its BIOS won't load at all. Also, the Auzentech (formerly Blue Gears) X-Mystique 7.1 doesn't work with this video card in this combination. In both cases there is some low level BIOS incompatibility and so far no one really takes responsibility for it. So, I had to get rid of a few hard drives and go back to on-board Realtek sound in order to get the sweet/insane framerates. I'm not very happy in the end - too much of a tradeoff. FYI, I had the latest BIOS, drivers, etc. Before you buy this card check out EVGA forums to see if people with similiar g

Can't attach a second fan

be quiet! Dark Rock Slim CPU Air Cooler | 180W TDP | Compact Air Cooler | LGA 1700 1200 2066 1150 1151 1155 2011(-3) Square ILM | Intel and AMD 4/5 Support | Low Noise Cooler | Black | BK024
be quiet! Dark Rock Slim CPU Air Cooler | 180W TDP | Compact Air Cooler | LGA 1700 1200 2066 1150 1151 1155 2011(-3) Square ILM | Intel and AMD 4/5 Support | Low Noise Cooler | Black | BK024

Pros: Looks great and feels like a quality product. All black looks really good. Sleeved fan wires. I'm sure it works great, I don't have the CPU yet :)

Cons: Some fins were bent but easily straightened with fingers. Big one: all reviews I read and watched said that you can attach another fan for push-pull configuration. The cooler even comes with an extra pair of clips. I guess none of them actually tried, they just assumed. You can't. The radiator is asymmetric and you would need shorter clips to attach a second fan. All included clips are the same size. They will not hold a fan on the other side. So this is a bummer, I ordered another fan for this. I guess I'll keep it as a spare. Or maybe I'll try to bend the clips or something.

Overall Review: Not happy about the fan situation:/

10/14/2020

Works fine, not much to say

Rosewill RC-508 USB 3.0 PCI-E Express Card with 4 USB 3.0 Ports, Speed Up to 5.0 Gbps
Rosewill RC-508 USB 3.0 PCI-E Express Card with 4 USB 3.0 Ports, Speed Up to 5.0 Gbps

Pros: No drivers needed under Windows 10. It powers external 2.5" USB hard drives if the internal power is connected.

Cons: No major cons.

Overall Review: It works, what else to say. I wish the bracket was black. I also wish it had SATA power instead of Molex. But it's fine.

10/14/2020

The memory is fine but the software doesn't run!

Crucial Ballistix Elite 3600 MHz DDR4 DRAM Desktop Gaming Memory Kit 32GB (8GBx4) CL16 BLE4K8G4D36BEEAK
Crucial Ballistix Elite 3600 MHz DDR4 DRAM Desktop Gaming Memory Kit 32GB (8GBx4) CL16 BLE4K8G4D36BEEAK

Pros: The memory runs at XMP 3600MHz, CL16 as advertised. Low profile. My case is a little tight and my old RAM was too tall for my new AIO radiator. No RGB!

Cons: The Ballistix MOD Utility says my motherboard is incompatible - I have a fairly common board: Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Pro WiFi that has been around for couple of years. Looks like the utility hasn't been updated in a long time:( Shame Crucial!

Overall Review: I'm not trying to overclock it so I can't comment on that. Not much faster than my old 3000MHz CL14. My Geekbench 5 score is the same for single threaded test but about 1000 points faster for multithreaded test i9 (9900K). But since I had to get a new RAM anyway I figured I might as well get something faster, but I wasn't expecting a huge improvement, so I'm fine with this.

10/14/2020

Not a lot faster than factory overclocked GTX980Ti otherwise a solid upgrade

ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 FE 8GB GDDR5X PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Graphics Card GTX1080-8G
ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 FE 8GB GDDR5X PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Graphics Card GTX1080-8G

Pros: Runs cool and overclocks easily, fastest single card right now.

Cons: Expensive obviously. It may not be a good value for 980Ti owners, only about 20% faster at most when overclocked.

Overall Review: I feel slightly underwhelmed. I have a factory overclocked EVGA 980Ti and this is maybe 20% faster at most. However, I noticed significant improvement in PhysX in Borderlands 2 and Borderlands Pre-Sequel: I can run at highest PhysX settings and no more stuttering during large explosions. It overclocks easily too. At 1900MHz there is at least 10% boost in performance, breaks 10k mark in Firestrike Extreme, while still well under 80C. One egg removed for hype. This is not quite the revolution as Nvidia would like us all to believe. It's a solid card but it feels just like any other previous upgrade to me.