Thanks for the in-depth analysis. I've been reading on a few sources for the same comparison and they seem to conclude that DDR4-2800 is the sweet spot in terms of performance VS value. Anything over that is too expensive for the marginal gain.

Thanks for the review! I own the Z170-A with a 6600K. If anyone is wondering, the white plastic shroud is very easily removed (3 screws on the back) and I did so for extra cooling. So far the board has been good, the one thing I didn't notice until too late is that by default it will boot in Legacy ...

I do understand

As a matter of fact I have one, but I'm using it so it's definitly not "spare" lol

Thanks for the review, however like most sites the review is for the 6700k which is currently very rare and overpriced due to availability. A review or at least comparison of the 6600K would have been appreciated as pricing and availability are much better.

For the lazy here's the 3rd result from a google search: Kingston let us know that the Boot ROM code is on the HyperX Predator PCIe SSD and that it should be bootable on pretty much any system as long at the BIOS supports a bootable device on the PCIe slot you are wanting to place the card in. Kings...

This drive is NOT NVME - it is AHCI so should be bootable on most platform. However a BIOS upgrade might be required on most older motherboards (Z87 and older). I would suggest doing some research first before spending money on this. A really good and faster alternative is the Samsung SM951 (which f...

Thanks for this review. Overall not a bad SSD and a worthy upgrade for anyone using older sandforce based drives, but not top of the chain either. I read that drives based on this controller tend to keep good performance when they fill up, whereas this is not always the case for other controllers. I...

This is great news! However I just bought the Noctua NH-U14S :( I still have a brand new original Ninja Plus in its box somewhere, I would definitly use it but support for newer sockets seems impossible. The way I recall it, the orinigal ninja was marketed as a "fanless / passive" solution (well, as...

If I was you I would simply move your HDD to a NAS unit, hidden away in a closet or basement where noise is not an issue. You can also get the possibility of data duplication with RAID1 if you buy a 2nd identical drive.

Honestly? I would definitly upgrade to SSD, no questions asked. First, you'll get blazing speed, no latency while accessing data, and most of all no noise. The prices are plummeting down very fast, I've seen 120G Agility 3 drives for 55$ after MIR last weekend. Average price for 120G is between 60-1...

Mmm... interesting. I also have the problem that ever since I went dual-monitor on my 5770, I can't enable Overclock or else I have weird refresh issues in 2D mode (just browsing the web, or simply idling on the desktop). That is even if the 2nd monitor is turned off (no power) as I don't use it all...

I'm happy to report that a RAID1 with 2 of these drives in a DNS-320 enclosure work perfectly well! I really wanted the 3TB though, but the price wasn't as good and there are problems with the current DNS-320 firmware version to work with bigger capacity drives. I haven't done any scientific speed t...

That way you can ensure that all the data written to the drive stay in the first 50gb of the drive. I understand that running many benchmark creates a huge amount of writes / delete to the drive. When you delete a file, the data itself is not deleted but rather simply the index and new data will be ...

No way!!! This is really sad news indeed... I visit your site at least once a week and I am glad to find all the information about silent computing. I am sure that many manufacturers pay a lot more attention to silence in their design because of the huge community here as SPCR. If you close the site...

I have 4 ssd's in 2 machines (not counting the crappy stock SSD in my Acer Aspire One), one has 2x30 Vertex in RAID 0 and 1x60 GB Agility. The other has 1x60 GB Agility. I do have however a NAS with 2x1.5 TB in RAID-1 for all my pictures, music, steam, and VM's. I agree that currently the higher cap...

Yeah - the risk is pretty minimal unless you download the wrong bios (in most case you can see it before actually chossing "yes") or unless of course you lose power (if you try to flash your bios during a thunderstorm for example - nothing a good APC unit won't handle). I always keep my BIOS / firmw...

Here's an idea: you could buy the Scythe Kama Stay! It's a fantastic product when you can find it on sale (around 16$) and basically takes an empty PCI slot and you can mount fans in many different positions/angles. It even comes with a controlled 120mm slim fan! It can hold 2x120mm or a single 140m...

I'm so unlucky... I had some self-adhesive silicon washers laying around so I removed the white plastic spacers and used them instead. After doing a quick test it showed that contact was indeed perfect with these! However, as I was turning the last screw I felt it snap! The screw completely broke......

Here's an update on my situation... The first time I stopped screwing as soon as I felt some resistance... but this time I turned until very tight. Still no change in temps... So I removed the cooler altogether, and surprise there is about 1/3 of the core that never got any thermal paste on it... so...

Hey everyone, I recently bought an Accelero L2 Pro brand new for 15$ CAD (cheap!) and finally came around to mounting it on my XFX 5770 (original shroud cooler) which was way too noisy. I kept the plate that covers the front RAM and used ramsinks on the back & VRM. I had to change the default bracke...

Same thing here! I have an original Ninja (complete with backplate) sitting in its retail box for a couple of years now... I was actually looking at a way to fit this one on LGA1156 for my soon-to-be-bought PC, so if anyone has a guide on how to do that I would be very grateful!

OMG those temps are SOOOO low!!!!! Seems almost impossible even with EIST enabled! Mine go as low as 28C on a very cool day (idle with EIST), E6420 @ 2,67 GHz.

(too late, but I still give my input) I would recommend the Corsair 520W, would be great with your build, very silent, and modular.

I took the E6420 and raised FSB to 333 giving 2.67 GHz - not a great overclock, but enough for my needs and a match to my RAM (4 GB of Corsair TWIN2X2048-5400C4 @ 4-4-4-12). Did not even have to change any voltage settings, and my CPU is stable with EIST enabled.

I'd say WRT54G, has been working great for the last year!

Last week I bought a SATA Pioneer DVR-212D for around CAD 40$. SATA is the way to go unless you have an old chipset. It replaced an aging Pioneer DVR-A05. However I did have 1 quirk with this drive (could be a chipset issue, mine is 945G+ICH7): When plugged to SATA port #1, XP would never recognise ...

Just buy a SCURK1 kit for less ~10$... works wonders! I did not even used the copper spacer, only the backplate (don't peel it off!) and the 2 metal brackets.

I just finished setting up a system with an ASRock Conroe1333-DVI/H. You might take a look at this board, it's quite interesting mainly because of the free DVI-HDCP car thrown in and, of course, passive cooling. It's up and running on a Core 2 Duo E6420 @ 1333 FSB, Ninja REV.B with SCURK1 and 4 GB o...

Good news! I found what was wrong: definitely my PSU Icute 420W. I tried one from another computer (Enermax Noisetaker 375W): it booted fine! What I don't get is this PSU is working fine with another LGA775 board (an older Asus P5P800S with a Pentium 4 640). Ah well.... at least I won't have to RMA!

Whoa... 1st time I try AsRock... and maybe the last! Maybe I should have paid a bit more and choose Asus as I always do. But they didn't had a mobo with integrated VGA with DVI-out. I doubt a short could still happen outside the case. Unless, as I said, the Scythe Ninja backplate that is the culprit...