All posts by Colton

WD Blue 500GB SSD Review

<![CDATA[*This is a part of a classroom experiment.
Our Verdict 

  • The Good: The WD Blue SSD is faster than any regular hard drive and you can write a ton of data to it before it wears out.
  • The Bad: The drive is expensive and doesn’t justify the added cost. It has a short warranty.

About Western

  • Western Digital Corporation (commonly referred to as Western Digital and often abbreviated as WDC) is an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world.
    Headquarters are located in San Jose, California.
  • Western Digital was founded on April 23, 1970, by Alvin B. Phillips.
  • Western Digital employees over 76,000 people.
  • Such longevity and experience in the hard drive industry makes this drive even more reliable.

Product Details

  • The Western Digital solid state drive is a fast drive. Programs load so much quicker and windows itself loads so much more rapidly with this solid state over most traditional drives.
  • The major flaw with SSD’s though is the cost. This drive has a sale price of $158.33. Yes this is much more expensive than traditional spinney drives.
  • However our purpose for this specific drive was for an everyday business PC.  With a solid state such as this our business PC was able to perform at maximum speeds. Programs on your PC run much faster with a SSD as such.
  • This SSD just doesn’t have enough storage nor will it last a long time. Therefore, we recommend having a traditional hard drive which you can keep all your important files on to keep for a very long time. Yet by having this SSD you can run programs at much faster speeds.

WD Blue 500GB Internal SSD Specs

  • Capacity: 500GB
  • Interface: SATA III 6Gb/s
  • Form Factor of 2.5inches or 7mm
  • Firmware: X41000WD
  • Controller: Marvell 88SS1074
  • Sequential read: up to 545MB/s
  • Sequential Write: up to 525MB/s
  • Random Read IOP’s: up to 100K
  • Random Write IOP’s: up to 80K
  • Meantime to Failure (MTTF): 1.75Million hours
  • Endurance Rating 200TB (Terabytes written)
  • WD FIT Lab Certification for compatibility across a wide range of laptops and desktops
  • Free downloadable WD SSD Dashboard to monitor the status of the drive and Acronis True Image backup utility
  • 3 Year limited warranty
References:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/get-windows-10?step=Win10Question1
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W04ZF1443
https://www.wdc.com/about-wd.html]]>

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9D-8GBXM

<![CDATA[*This is apart of a classroom experiment.
This Ripjaws X Series 2 X 4GB Model is an excellent addition to your business computer. This ram is made by G.SKILL which is a very well known company for their memory they produce. It is fast for the fairly low price. No I would not recommend putting this into a gaming PC of yours however it works great for an everyday PC.

Here are the specs for the memory in which we are reviewing:
  • Capacity of this motherboard is 8GB (2 x 4GB)The memory sticks are 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM. The memory is DDR3 2133 megahertz (PC3 17000). CAS Latency is low at 9. The following is the timing as well, 9-11-10-28 It requires 1.65 volts of power to run smoothly. The memory is non-ECC as well as non-parity. The memory is dual channel maximum. The memory is always very appealing to the eye with its blue color. It only comes with the stylish heat spreader to upgrade the performance.

 

  • One of the most impressive things for this memory is how fast it is for the price. The access time for this memory is 4.2914 nanoseconds. That is a very fast access time for the memory only costing $77.99. Another bonus for this memory is that it has a heat spreader which helps keep the memory cool which will help the memory preform at its highest capability.

 

  • The memory works very well for your everyday business PC. It is DDR3 so make sure that it is suitable for your motherboard. One suitable motherboard for this memory is this ECS AMD Motherboard Supported A55F2P-M2(V1.0). I recommend this memory and worked very well for me.

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Product/Product_Overview.aspx?DetailID=1528&CategoryID=1&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=12&LanID=0
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231476
https://www.gskill.com/en/]]>

AMD – A6-7400K Processor – Black

<![CDATA[AMD is a very well known company which has been selling products since 1969. AMD is a very trusted seller in which is well-known for selling products at very inexpensive prices. I needed to buy a CPU for a low cost therefore, I chose AMD specifically for a very inexpensive gaming PC. Although the Motherboards I already had, required an FM2+ socket type.
I chose the AMD – A6-7400K Processor – Black Series. It was very inexpensive costing only $58.99. Pass-mark rates this processor fairly decent for how low the cost is. Which for my needs it fit perfect for me.

  • Passmark CPU Mark: 2792
  • Passmark CPU Rank: 1132

This processor has a high processor speed although it had a couple flaws. First there was not much cache therefore it made the processor run overall slower. The 6-cores helps on certain things although it does not necessarily help me with gaming.
Specifications

  • Processor Speed:
    • 3.5 gigahertz
  • Memory Compatibility:
    • DDR3 1866
  • Cache Level:
    • L1 (96 KB 3-way and 2 x 16 KB 4-way),
    • L2 (1 Megabyte)
  • Processor Cores:
    • 6-cores

 
Overall this processor preforms well for the price. I would recommend this for other things, but it might not be the best processor for a gaming PC. AMD – A6-7400K Processor – Black Series is a reliable processor however.
https://www.bestbuy.com
http://www.amd.com/en
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113370
https://www.passmark.com/
*This review is for a classroom project]]>

Micro ATX ECS AMD Supported A55F2P-M2 Motherboard Review

<![CDATA[The ECS A55F2P-M2 (V1.0) is built with high-quality components, and provides the industry’s highest level of features and technologies. It’s an absolute top choice for any DIY users.

  • ECS announced the A55F2P-M2, an entry-level socket FM2+ motherboard, that’s ready for AMD’s A-Series.
  • The narrow micro-ATX motherboard draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors.
  • The socket is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot, and a PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slot. A legacy PCI slot makes for the rest of the expansion area.
  • Storage connectivity includes four SATA 3 Gb/s ports.
  • Display outputs include DVI and D-Sub. Two USB 3.0 ports, 6-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, and PS/2 connectors make for the rest of the connectivity (New-egg).This Micro ATX ECS AMD Supported A55F2P-M2 Motherboard is a great product for the price. ECS meets the current and future demands of high performance, power embedded computing, making it ideal for communications, transaction terminal, interactive client, industrial automation applications as well as for standard home use
"Note this is a classroom project"
References:
ECS - Motherboard, Notebook, Tablet PC, System, IPC, LIVA Mini PC, www.ecs.com.tw/ecswebsite/index.aspx?MenuID=0&LanID=0.“ECS A55F2P-M2 (V1.0) FM2+ / FM2 AMD A55 (Hudson D2) Micro ATX AMD Motherboard.”
Newegg.com- Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, HDTVs, Digital Cameras and More!, www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135378.
“NewEgg.com.” Overclock.net, www.overclock.net/products/ecs-a55f2p-m2-micro-atx-amd-motherboard.

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