Recent content by JWatson

Update: Finally got the machine up and running after having to buy a different motherboard as ASUS does not warranty any motherboard with damage (even if due to faulty MOSFET chips). Now the computer is up and running and it runs better than I imaged. Gaming is as good if not better than my...

Thanks for the input! My friend is giving it to me since he upgraded to a newer workstation after the motherboard went up in smoke. It still has a year of warranty so I'm currently RMA-ing the motherboard back to Asus (P9X79 WS). Thankfully the CPU, RAM, and PSU are still working. However, the...

Situation: A friend wants to give me his workstation that he no longer use and I'm wondering if this would suit my needs to replace both my current gaming desktop and test workstation I use for VM labs to save space and electricity. Current Setup: Gaming Rig: i5-2500K 4.1GHz, 16GB DDR3 1600...

I had horrible coil whine on this card and ended up returning it for a refund because they were out of stock. I left a 3D benchmark program on overnight to see if that would help eliminate the noise, but it didn't help at all. It did run great without any hiccups in any games, but the noise from...

Pretty much why I am concerned. I'm sure the card will be more than enough for my 1080p resolution, but I just don't want a card to die due to lack of proper cooling. $400 bucks after tax is a lot of money to have go up in blue smoke

Will not having heatsinks on the VRAM at all be a problem for long-term durability? This seems like a good card for the price, even after CA tax. However, I don't want a card to die prematurely because of poor cooling.

Good eye! Now that makes the decision even harder. Do I just want to get the X25 120gb for $205 AR, the 320 120gb for $225, or the Intel 510 for $253 AR.. Intel controller vs Marvell controller... and Better write speeds on 320 vs slower write speeds on X25...Darn you deals for making it...

Yeah I live in California and have $75 amazon gift card, so I might as well use it on the SSD and get no tax.

@Anonemous That was a great deal! I missed the 510 rebate date by a few days otherwise, it would have been a great buy. @zuffy That's what I thought. I just wanted to get something that's faster than a typical hard drive, but didn't know if the leap from one SSD to another was all that big...

I've been following anandtech reviews on SSD for over a year now and still haven't bitten on any of drives due to prices mostly. So far I've narrowed my choices down to 2 drives: Intel 320 120gb - $230 amazon Intel 510 120gb - $285 amazon I'm going for reliability at the moment, and intel...

I bought several 4-bay external eSATA and USB 2.0 from Media Sonic, and they've worked wonderfully. They were only 120 each when I bought them, and I paired it with a cheap external 2 port esata card from monoprice. They worked great! I highly recommend it if your just need a JBOD (Just a Bunch...