I don’t like to use the word love when talking about machines, but I think it would be fair to say that I’m really, really happy about my new computer. With my brother’s help in designing and building my new home desk top I’m absolutely thrilled to say that my new baby is plugged in, patched up, online and looking to game and a whole lot more!
Right out of the gate I have to say an appropriate good by to the old fellow I’m leaving behind. With his Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz processor, conservative 2 GB of Corsair high performance DDR2 memory, a BFG GeForce 9800 GT 512 MB video card and nearly a TB of disk space he has been my go to computer since 1 month after the Windows Vista launch. BIGDADDY as he was aptly named was my development platform, database server, web server, gaming rig and even the kids occasional homework helper. At any given moment BIGDADDY was usually running a database server, 2 web servers and still managing to rend Battlefield Bad Company 2. What a machine! I know that in whatever capacity BIGDADDY gets deployed next, he will make someone else as happy as he made me.
But enough about the past. Now is a time to look to the future. The new work horse is called simply “Jay”. A simple name for a very no nonsense computer. Jay’s heart is an AMD Phenom II (Black Edition) X4 955 Processor clocking in at 3.2 GHz. Jay’s memory foot print at 8 GB of G.SKILL DDR3 1333 is a slight upgrade over BIGDADDY. The video card is a perfect price point XFX Raedon HD 5770 1 GB beauty. With Windows 7 Professional 64 Jay marks the first time I’ve deployed a 64 bit OS on my main computer. Sweet! All 8 GB of spacious RAM natively addressed by the shiny new OS that finally takes full advantage of the processor underneath. With the primary drive clocking in at 0.5 TB of disk space Jay has a little less storage, but after I transfer the secondary drive from BIGDADDY into this box it will weight in at a lean and mean 1 TB of disk space.
Initial impressions are SOLID. Battlefield Bad Company 2 plays like a dream. Supreme Commander 2 is flawlessly rendered and can handle 1 player and 2 locally hosted AI’s without missing a beat. I’m in the process of rebuilding my server environment and I will update you on that process in a future post. For now all I can say is I’m super pleased with the new computer. Thanks to Lane for his advice and all his work putting it together for me! I cannot wait to stretch this bad boy’s legs!
