Category Archives: NT IT Reviews

GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 Motherboard Review

<![CDATA[High-quality PC building is a very pricey thing to do.  Some of the best builds can cost up to 3,000 dollars and much higher.  This can cause builders to skimp on some products like the motherboard. The GA-Z170X-Gaming Motherboard is full of performance for its price. It also was not the worst experience for the $335 price tag.
GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
This motherboard has many expansions slots for gaming and video editing. It also has amazing specifications

  • Intel Z170 Chipset
  • LGA 1150 Socket Type
  • Supports 6th and 7th generation Intel Processors (I7, I5, I3, Pentium, and Celeron)
  • Supports 4 sticks of DDR4 RAM duel channel
    • running at 2133 and overclocked speeds
    • maxing out at 64 GB
  • 3 PCI E x16 3.0 Slots (Shielded to support the weight of heavy graphics cards)
  • 3 PCI E x1 3.0 Slots
  • 9 SATA III connectors and 2 M.2 slots
  • 6 SATA 6 Gb/s connectors
  • 3 SATA Express Connectors
  • 2 M.2 Socket 3 Connectors
  • Support for 3-Way/2-Way AMD CrossFire and 2-Way NVIDIA SLI Technology
  • Supports On-board Video, Audio and LAN
    • Integrated Graphics Processor-Intel HD Graphics support
    • Realtek ALC1150
      • 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
    • Killer E2201 LAN chip
      • 10/100/1000Mbps

These specifications are pretty hefty for a board this price. This motherboard is in theory a great choice for high end gaming or editing. There are also many drawbacks for this board. Its flimsy when it came to plugging the power connector in. Even after the board had a decent start and work fine for a while, it had died just a few months after installing it into my PC.
There are also many review one Newegg of people who had the same problem as me.
Donald V stated;
“Pros: Performed well for 8 months. Installation and operation were as expected. Nice layout and features.
Cons: Died after 8 months. First board to die on me but I am not a heavy hitter. Just a gamer who updates for some added performance every 2 years or so. Minor OC. ”
Also an anonymous user stated;
“Pros: Works well easy uefi and easy board software
Cons: Width is slightly shorter than a normal atx board. I wouldn’t have bought it if I new that because the 24 pin power hangs on the end and the amount of force to insert the 24 pin is scary sometimes afraid of cracking the board. Also had 2 USB ports stop working on the motherboard.”
There were also many other reviews of people who had problems that had issues with it working after just a few months and had components short out.
In conclusion, this is a solid board to buy and use, but the long term of the board is not good at all due to it dying very shortly. Though it is a solid board, I personally would not recommend it due to the lifespan.

Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.

To see more you can go to Newegg and Toms Hardware
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Review of the MSI X99A GODlike Gaming motherboard.

Motherboard reviews, NT IT Reviews

<![CDATA[Many believe in the high quality gaming market, but few can actually afford to build such a rig to meet the demands of some mainstream triple A title games now-a-days. Due to hefty costs it is no wonder why some motherboards are out of reach to the average consumer. But… Lets just say if you need a motherboard with these specs it is safe to say that you are not just an average consumer.  This will leave even the hardest of tech enthusiasts drooling out their mouth when they take a glance at this product.
I present you with the MSI Gaming X99A GODlike gaming motherboard.

This motherboard is the best of the best with specs that can not be found almost anywhere else on a E-ATX board.  Lets take a look at these specs:

  • Chipset: X99
  • USB Ports: 6x 3.1 (1x Gen 2 1x type-C, 4x Gen 1), 2x 2.0
  • Audio Jacks: 5x analog, 1x 6.3 mm, 1x S/PDIF out
  • Sata Connectors: 10x 6Gb/s (Shares 1x SATA-E, 1x M.2)
  • Compatible CPU’s: Core I7’s for the LGA 2011 v3 socket (Not backwards compatible)
  • Memory: 8x 288 pin dims. (DDR4, Quad Channel)
  • Memory Speeds: (*=OC) 3400*/3333*/3110*/3000*/2800*/2750*/2666*/2600*/2400*/2200*/2133
  • Expansion Slots: 5x PCIe X16
  • Expansions Slot technologies: Supports 4-way AMD crossfire along with 4-way Nvidia SLI (With a CPU with 40 PCIe lanes). Also supports 3-way Nvidia SLI (With a CPU with 28 PCIe lanes)
  • Wi-Fi: Killer Wireless 1535
  • Lan: Killer E2400 Gigabit
  • Bluetooth: v4.1

This motherboard definitely does not disappoint on the spec sheet, and with a–wait for it– monstrous $999 price tag attached to it (Via Newegg) one would hope it didn’t.
What comes in the box is not disappointing either.

With premium packaging the box withholds the following:

  • Installation CD
  • 8GB installation USB drive
  • Instruction manual
  • Quick start user guide
  • Padded I/O back-plate shield
  • 10 SATA cables Including five with angled heads
  • Four flexible SLI bridges
  • M.2 to U.2 adapter card
  • Six voltage check extension leads
  • 3.5mm to 6.3mm headphone jack adapter
  • Two WiFi antennas with external magnetic mounts

After a look at this, one could draw the conclusion that the box is as loaded as the specs are.
But what you are really interested in, is the performance. Will it be future proof? Is it reliable? Etc. Well since my word is not enough I will present a customer review (via Newegg).
“I don’t know where to begin. I had this motherboard up and running my Core i7 5960x @ 4.7Ghz in an hour w/ a dual custom water loop. Ran into ZERO problems. Everything fit perfectly and booted up like lightning! I updated the BIOS to the newest version with ease.” ~Vincent D.
He went on to say:
“Best motherboard I have ever used. I was wary about the price at first but all worries went away when I finished my build and fired this monster up for the first time. A Happy MSI and Newegg Customer!”                                                                                                                                                   ~Vincent D.
Among many other reviews on Newegg I find the same general Pros and Cons amongst all of them. The good parts of the motherboard review is quite obvious, with great specs and an overall good quality of materials used, it is no surprise that this is one of (if not) the best motherboard on the market for gamer’s right now.
The only gripe that is negative that persists throughout the most reviews is that you’re beholden to the red aluminum on the motherboard, even with the glowing bright multi-colored LED’s that come with it. The red aesthetic may not be for you or your rig, so keep that in mind if you plan to buy this board.
In conclusion this motherboard will suit almost anyone’s needs for any given use-case. With that being said, assuming you can throw around $1k at your rig this will be future proof for an estimate of 4-5 years, and will come with reliability and class.
If you wish to read up on more reviews or even buy this product I’ll leave the following links:
Buy on Newegg / read other reviews.
Tom’s Hardware overview
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.
“MSI Gaming X99A GODlike Gaming LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard.” MSI Gaming X99A GODlike , 2018, www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAGAH8C24815.
Linden, Eric Vander. “MSI X99A Godlike Gaming ATX Motherboard Review.” Tom’s Hardware, Tom’s Hardware, 25 May 2016, www.tomshardware.com/reviews/msi-x99a-godlike-gaming-intel-lga-2011-v3-atx-motherboard,4570.html.
“Intel® X99 Express Motherboard X99A GODLIKE GAMING.” Overview for GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G | Graphics Card – The World Leader in Display Performance | MSI USA, us.msi.com/Motherboard/X99A-GODLIKE-GAMING.html.
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Review of the Corsair Vengeance LPX

Memory Reviews

<![CDATA[Corsair is one of the world’s leading providers of PC components. Corsair produces top of the line cutting edge SSDs, along with PC cases, PC and CPU cooling solutions. Under their gaming brand, they produce mice, mouse mats, keyboards, headsets. They have a global operations infrastructure with multiple distribution channels, partnerships, and great marketing in over 60 countries worldwide.
I used their very own Corsair Vengeance LPX memory kit in my PC for home use, equipped with my Biostar TB250-BTC motherboard.

The Corsair Vengeance LPX specifications:

  • 4 GB
  • 288 pins
  • DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200)
  • Single Channel
  • Cas latency of 14
  • An access time of 5.83 nanoseconds

I bought this RAM at a great price of $60.74 at Newegg! According to PC World they give this a 4.5 out of 5 expert rating. 
Note: This is part of a classroom project]]>

WD Blue SSD Review

Hard Drive Reviews, NT IT Reviews

<![CDATA[Western Digital is an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world, compared to its main competitor Seagate Technology (Western Digital Wikipedia).

The 500GB model of this memory gives the best value for a price of $129.99 . They offer a 3 year warranty period for parts and labor, and provide a MTBF of up to 1.75 million hours (Tom’s Hardware).
The WD Blue’s performance is far from exciting. As a hard disk drive manufacturer, Western Digital is having trouble keeping up and updating with optimized solid state drives. Many hard drive companies fail to create newer and updated products when they are consumed in an old mindset. Although the 1 TB Blue SSD breaks the 10,000 random read IOPS barrier, the price for this performance is steep (Tom’s Hardware).

Specifications (For 500GB) :

Capacity-500 Gb
Read– 560 MBps
Write– 530 MBps
IOPS Read– 95,000
IOPS Write– 84,000

Overall, the WD Blue is not worth the effort. If you’re paying the cheaper option, you’ll definitely see it in the performance. If you choose the better performance option, the price is ridiculous. It is just another piece of evidence that older companies that get stuck in their old ways are bound to fail.
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.
References:
www.newegg.com
http://www.tomshardware.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.wdc.com]]>

My Review of the 500 GB Western Digital SSD

Memory Reviews

<![CDATA[Western Digital is all about quality products, being the first manufacturer to offer mainstream ATA HDDs in 2001. Since then they have been about delivering only the best to their customers
The 500 GB SSD I put into my home PC makes my PC runs great, and according to the reviews on Newegg other people think so too.  “Faster response time”, “very easy to install”, “Spot-on performance for a late-model SATA SSD”

The specifications for this SSD are as follows:

  • 500 GB capacity
  • Read and Write speeds up to 560 and 530 MBps
  • Mean time before failure is up to 1.75 million hours
  • A limited warranty of 3 years

I bought this SSD off of Newegg for just $129.99! 
I would recommend this SSD to anyone looking for a good performance out of their SSD for their time and money!

Note: This is part of a classroom project]]>

Toshiba P300 – The Unexpected Failure

Hard Drive Reviews, Uncategorized

<![CDATA[Toshiba— Founded July 1875 in Tokyo, Japan has a rich history of innovative technology. They’re continuing to expand the limits of mobile computing but their passion for innovation is hardly new. In fact, it dates back centuries (as they claim)
The P300 can either be a good buy or a bad buy. On Benchmark.com shows that the age months on this hard drive is 29. That means this hard drive will average about more than a 2 year life span, and too bad the warranty ends in 2 years. But by looking at the reviews on Newegg it seems like you will never know if it will last 2 years or 2 weeks.

  • Storage: 1 TB
  • Speed: 7200 rpm
  • Age Months: 28
  • Access Time: 4.17ms
  • Read/Write: 153 MB/s
  • Buffer: 64 MB

Warranty: 2 year limited
After seeing these bipolar reviews I decided to do research for myself. With the product having a 4 egg review seemed weird. It was either a hit or miss, some people said it was great and it lasted more than two years and still working. While 25% of the reviews varied from failing right after the warranty ended, to not working out of the box.
I bought 4 of these hard drives to use a RAID 5 array, and see the failure rate based off of the reviews. All four came in and only 3 worked out of the box. After an hour of setting up, one of the hard drives kept crashing the BIOS. Finally getting it to work, that hard drive lasted for about a week before all three hard drives died. I sent all four drives in for RMA. There online RMA process was simple enough, however it has been 10+ weeks since they received the drives and approved a reward card in exchange and no rewards card has arrived. Whats worse than a bad hard drive? A bad hard drive company.
In conclusion, never buy a hard drive from Toshiba. A lot of people lost TB of information with these drives. Along with everyone else in the reviews… spend your money on a hard drive with a nice warranty from a good company like (Western Digital).
References:
https://www.newegg.com
http://www.toshiba.com/tai/
http://www.kitguru.net
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.]]>

HP S700 SSD Review

Hard Drive Reviews, NT IT Reviews

<![CDATA[
This is a review of an Hp S700 SSD that is compatible with any motherboard that supports a SATA III port connection. This HP S700 SSD is also a Kaby Lake version. This CPU is to be used for a faster gaming PC. This is an up to date model and it can be used for gaming purposes. While you could use this for lower end use like for home use, it is not the purpose that it is being reviewed for.

The HP S700 solid state drive is manufactured by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company is an American multinational corporation and technology company which focuses on the development of SSD’s (solid state drives), also known as the data storage device of the computer. They are headquartered in Palo Alto, California. They started up their corporation on November 1, 2015. They are widely considered a top drive manufacturer. (HP Wikipedia) For more information about HP see their website.
Image result for palo alto caImage result for palo alto ca HP headquarters
Specifications:

  • 2.5″
  • Size: 250Gb
  • Max Sequential Read Up to 555 MBps
  • Max Sequential Write Up to 515 MBps
  • 4KB Random Read Up to 55,000 IOPS
  • 4KB Random Write Up to 80,000 IOPS
  • Buffer: 32 Mb
  • TLC (is able to take in more per cell)
  • MTBF Lifespan: 2,000,000 hours
  • Warranty: 3 years

Image result for HP SSDs S700
With these specifications, it worked really well and really fast for my  ASRock H170A-X1 home motherboard. When I found these specifications of the SATA III ports fit my motherboard. This HP S700 SSD was a great find for me to use for my home motherboard. I recommend you get it too, I got mine from Coleton’s Computer Parts distribution company. The final price for it was $69.99 as seen on Newegg.
Note: This review is for a classroom project.
References: https://www.hpe.com/us/en/home.html
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W063A9944
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett_Packard_Enterprise]]>

WD Blue 500GB SSD Review

Hard Drive Reviews

<![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]]>

Seagate Constellation ES.2 HDD Review

Hard Drive Reviews, Uncategorized

<![CDATA[hard drive failure rates by model
Seagate and Western Digital are commonly known as the top two HDD manufacturers in the industry today. Now while they both have similar problems, I decided to choose a Seagate HDD because they had a lower fail rate. According to the graph on the left, Seagate has five HDD’s that had some of the lowest failure rates, compared to Western Digital’s three HDDs (Backblaze).
 
Seagate Technology was created in 1978 by Al Shugart, Tom Mitchell, Doug Mahon, Finis Conner and Syed Iftikar. They produce hard drives, hybrid drives, and solid state drives. In 2015, Seagate produced around 45.9 million hard-disk drives including Samsung’s HDD output (Seagate owns Samsung’s HDD production). And in 2017, Seagate‘s annual revenue was $10.77 billion.
Image result for seagate

Seagate Constellation ES.2 HDD


Specifications:

  • Price: $79.99
  • Size: 3 TB
  • Transfer Rate: 155 MB/s
  • MTBF: 1.2 million hours
  • Warranty: 5 years
  • Speed: 7200 RPM
  • Access Time: 4.16ms
  • Read/Write Speed: 8.5/9.5MS
  • Buffer Size: 64 MB

The Seagate Constellation ES.2 is labeled as a enterprise class hard drive, which means that it is geared more towards business use (company servers, important storage arrays, etc.). The Constellation ES.2 brags about it’s low power consumption use and I was thoroughly surprised when the ES.2’s consumption was 17% less than the ES model. When tested against other models of the Constellation HDD’s read/write sequences, the 3TB SATA model triumphed reaching higher speeds (Storage Review). The price is pretty good for size/capacity with each GB costing .03 cents. Overall, this hard drive can be used for gaming, but would be fully utilized if used for business purposes.
Note:  This review is part of a classroom project.
References:
<https://www.backblaze.com>
<https://www.newegg.com>
<https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/>
<http://www.storagereview.com>
<https://en.wikipedia.org>
 ]]>

Review Of The BarracudaPro Hard Drive

Hard Drive Reviews

<![CDATA[Seagate Technology has created the best hard drive for your PC with the all-new BarracudaPro series. Seagate developed the first 5.25 inch HDD back in the 80’s and they continue to produce the best hard drives for their customers!
Image result for seagate 4 TB ST4000DM006
The hard drive pictured above is the BarracudaPro 4 Terabyte ST4000DM006 3.5-inch internal hard drive. This hard drive includes:

  • 4 TB capacity
  • A transfer rate of 600 MBps
  • Mean time before failure is 1.2 million hours!
  • 7200 RPM
  • The buffer size is 128 MB

I bought this hard drive off of Amazon for $174.99. It may seem a little pricey, but it comes with a guaranteed five-year warranty, and I can say that it is the best option for my gaming PC, compatible with my Biostar  X370GT7 motherboard. The reviews on Newegg below agree as well!



Note: This is part of a classroom project ]]>