M. G. Krishnamoorty's profile

M. G. rated:

Firstly, Got AMD FX-4100 against all advises to go for Intel i5 for a gaming PC. Secondly, assembled a gaming PC from the scratch for the first time. My experience before is just dabbling with the home PC and office PC's along with colleagues and technicians. Never done anything like this before all alone. I maintain all my PC's and laptop.

No regrets. Of course, you get it at half the price of Intel i5-2500K (6233 against 12,932). I did compare the performances from various sources on the net. Made a gaming PC from the scratch.

I got most of the things from Flipkart and delivery started immediately in a couple of days. Of course, there were several batches of deliveries and I had to track and communicate with customer care to expedite important components for the assembly. They were very cooperative and responded immediately.

My rig is
CPU: AMD FX-4100, 3.6 GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3EVO
Motherboard: Biostar TA990FxE
RAM: G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3 16GB RAM (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBZL)Quad Channel,
Graphic Card: MSI AMD/ATI R6850 Cyclone 1GDS Power Edition/OC 1GDDR5
Power Supply: Seasonic S12II-520 520 Watts PSU
Cabinet: Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Mid Tower Cabinet
HDD: WD Caviar Green 1 TB HDD Internal Hard Drive (WD10EARX)
SSD: Verbatim 64 GB Internal Solid State Drive
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B3ST Internal Optical Drive (Black)
Monitor: Dell 24 Inch Full HD WideScreen LED Monitor (ST2420L)
Audio: Logitech Z506 5.1 Multimedia Speakers
Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Wireless Combo (MK320) USB
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

Going great so far. The system is on all waking hours and even after keeping it on for several days continuously for updating windows and other softwares, the temperature display on the motherboard did not exceed 34 deg. C without Air conditioning. The minimum being 28 deg. C.

Packaging was too good.

Response to deliveries and logistics communication is too good. You get emails and SMS's immediately.

M. G. rated:

Got this during the first week of June 2012 and going great since then.
Ample number of cables and a spare converter cable.
All cables are sturdy and are covered with glass fibre gauze sleeve to protect from damage from any fans/ hot spots.
A couple of cables needed for motherboard/ GPU connections may clutter with the GPU/ cabinet/ cPU fans. One can easily take care by straping.
The ATX cable, HDD, ODD cables can be managed very well.
I have connected 12V 24 pin (ATX), 8 pin, 4 pin to the motherboard, one 6 pin to the PCIe/ GPU, 3 SATA power connectors for 1 SSD, 1 HDD and 1 DVD drive. Still there are many spare connections. Use the OEM's strap for managing the unused spare cables. In all I have 5 fans running inside the cabinet and one in the PSU. Ventilation has to be maintained.
This PSU can give 40A @ 12V max.
Cooling fan is pretty much silent with silent fan control (SFC).
I have mounted it at the bottom of my Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Mid Tower Cabinet. The upward draft of the cooling fan accumulates dust on the mesh filters. Simple brushing is good enough once in a while.
The voltage stability is less than +/-5% (Checked with BIOS), where as +/- 10% is the norm and power efficiency rated is 87%, which is best in the class, compared with Corsair CMPSU-600CXV2UK and Cooler Master GX 550.
I have underclocked the RAM voltage by -0.05V to keep it closest to +1.50V, else RAM starts giving errors in Memtest86+. Current RAM's are not very forgiving.
There was a short circuit on my motherboard and yet the pSU, which was doubted as the souce, is working fine.
Comes with 5 year Warranty.

There was a differrent picture of modular x-series, Which did influence me while placing the order, but I had cross verified with other sources. The picture was changed immediately.

My rig is
CPU: AMD FX-4100, 3.6 GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3EVO
Motherboard: Biostar TA990FXE
RAM: G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 16GB RAM (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL)Quad Channel,
Graphic Card: MSI AMD/ATI R6850 Cyclone 1GDS Power Edition/OC 1GDDR5
Power Supply: Seasonic S12II-520 520 Watts PSU~
Cabinet: Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Mid Tower Cabinet
HDD: WD Caviar Green 1 TB HDD Internal Hard Drive (WD10EARX)
SSD: Verbatim 64 GB Internal Solid State Drive
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B3ST Internal Optical Drive (Black)
Monitor: Dell 24 Inch Full HD WideScreen LED Monitor (ST2420L)
Audio: Logitech Z506 5.1 Multimedia Speakers
Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Wireless Combo (MK320) USB
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

M. G. rated:

Lots of metal and so heavy. Lots of ventilation, with hexagonal openings and supported wire meshes. Lots of provisions for fans (3 comes with OEM edition with the front one being transparent with LED light for some psychedelic effect, which can be switched on/off, thankfully). On Fixing 8-10 fans in the cabinet, more open sections in immediate proximity to a fan will lead to short circuiting of flow. But the saving grace is that most of the fans are suction type, with a wire mesh for filtering dust, except the one on the rear. Use suction type only. You can see the settled dust and scrub clean with a paint brush every now and then to not only keep the cabinet clean, but also improve the ventilation. I had to position and re-position the Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO cooler over the CPU to optimize the air flow to wards cool the CPU and the RAM modules.

There are lots of holes and cut outs and rubber flaps for cable management and heat pipes, if you need to use some.Assembling the components in the cabinet was pretty smooth and precise. Most of the assembly does not require any tools. Some big holes may allow small lizards.

The 3.5" external bay with a loose lid and USB ports and audio out put, though seems unwieldy with cables hampering the tray movement of the optical drives, it is very useful for using laptop HDD's and SSD's without any cables. Handy in quick backups. The flipside is that thick wires obstruct mounting of optical drive at the top. Lots of place for 3.5" internal drives.

Overall nice engineered piece.

M. G. rated:

I bought this piece in first week of June 2012. Working fine since then, even after a RAM track burn-out repair.
This sure is a value for money high-end gaming motherboard, which is a tad better than GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 and a tad lower than ASUS Crosshair V Formula, but much cheaper. But compare US price $ 129.90.
The build is chick. There is an aluminium heat sink plate at the rear of the CPU socket for better cooling and lots of aluminium around the CPU socket above board. The CPU cooler is mounted easily only with the whole motherboard out of the cabinet.
This requires lots of power connectors: 12V 24 pin ATX Power connector (1), 8 pin (1), 4 pin (1) molex type.
Cute UEFI BIOS set up. BIOS update through internet.
eHotline (self diagnostic OE software) report filing through email.
Toverclock in windows with many options.
Failsafe BIOS configuration built-in.
Can support 7.1 Audio, but I use 5.1 Logitech Z506.
The stock cooler is good enough, but I have installed Cooler Master cooler TX3EVO within Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Mid Tower Cabinet.
This motherboard gives 1 four pin CPU fan connector and 2 three pin system fan headers. I have directly connected 2 more fans.
I am using only one graphic card and multiple GPU's with Crossfire/ SLI are possible, though.
I am using HDMI connection through GPU with 24" HD monitor.
The motherboard can support 32 GB. Am using 16GB (4x4).
Ample number of USB ports. You can use USB 3.0 ports for USB 2.0 connections.
There are LED's provided on board for visual "all system OK".
A two digits 7 segment Debug LED display is given for displaying POST codes(in HEX).
On the flipside:
You cannot attach a monitor cable directly to the motherboard.
Elaborate updates for BIOS, OS, Drivers.
Overclocking from BIOS works well increasing multiplier factor only (Plenty of options).
Still need for floppy to install some drivers.

My rig is
AMD FX-4100, 3.6 GHz, Cooler Master Hyper TX3EVO, Biostar TA990FxE, G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 16GB RAM, MSI AMD/ATI R6850 Cyclone 1GDS Power Edition/OC 1GDDR5 GPU, Seasonic S12II-520W PSU, Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced Mid Tower Cabinet, WD Caviar Green 1 TB HDD, Verbatim 64 GB SSD, Asus DRW-24B3ST ODD, Dell 24" HD, LED Monitor, Logitech Z506 5.1 stereo. Logitech Wireless Combo (MK320), Win-7 HP x64

M. G. rated:

The features are very well reviewed and am sure that this is value for money delivered just about 24 hrs.

The piece was almost up to date on drivers and OS and HP support assistance have to be opted for, while installing to keep it up to date, for ever. This is unlike my previous DELL Inspiron 1525 which had to be updated entirely, which takes several days of hard and diligent work with out dated CD's / DVD's.

Display is too good. There are lot many games than normal. Quad Core is fast with graphic support and am able to manage graphics work better.

Audio is very good. Even at maximum volume it is not distorted. Some distortion creeps in if you further amplify in VLC player.
Separate number pad is very useful, but no number lock LED. Other function keys you need to hunt. You type with your watch on. The scroll pad disable function is novel.

The DVD drive is noisy.

I almost lost the opportunity of 3 yr extended warranty/ win8 offer because I did not click on "KNOW MORE"

M. G. rated:

Good Points-
- Its multiplayer
- You can choose difficulty levels
- It has 44 tracks
- Provides great physical exercise
- As you level up, you get to choose a gift.(the gifts can be extreme versions, dance mashups, battle modes and so on)
- You can create dancer cards for yourself and your fiends
- In the Just Sweat mode, you can select one of the five Smart Sweat Classes available to work out to specific music programs.

Bad Points-
(can't think of any!!)

I highly recommend this game. Its great if you are looking for some fun and physical exercise.

M. G. rated:

All features apart, most problematic part of Microsoft Windows is the updates and patches, if you are using properly activated softwares and want to run smoothly your systems. I had to spend hours of downloading to keep my system up to date.

The HP Pavilion G6 2005 AX, which I bought had almost up to date software. But these out dated DVD's are hopeless.