Home Computing Upgrades

2 weeks ago I upgraded my home PC to an AMD 64 X2 4600+ (dual core processor). This made a noticeable difference over my AMD Athlon 64 3600+, amazing really for an inexpensive drop in upgrade.

The difference was so significant I ordered the upgrade for Jess as well.

At the same time I finally became upgraded to a true dual-monitor solution at home, instead of just using Synergy between the desktop and the Sager 9860. I purchased a 22" Samsung widescreen, which I ended up trading Jess for. Jess was using a 19" and a 21.3 inch in dual monitor, but the 22" widescreen is almost exactly the same height as the 19". So I know have two 21.3" monitors running at 1600x1200. Its beautiful.

This past weekend Jess's processor arrived. The upgrade was nowhere near as smooth as mine. The biggest problem is the way the heatsink connects to the motherboard. After 4 hours of futzing with a very akward plugin location, fixing bent processor pins, and a slightly damaged heatsink clip her computer was up and running on the new processor.

From there I went about upgrading both machines to Vista. I tried going to x64 Vista, but I couldn't get a few things to work properly (sound, belkin N52, and Logitect g15 display). This was a much better experience than XP64, but I was concerned enough I quickly gave up and ran back to x86. The installs went very smoothly, though I am frustrated by the peripheral vendors lack of Vista drivers. All in all the upgrade went well on both computers and everything is working (as far as I know).

I am frustrated with the vendors Vista support - Vista's readiness to hit the market has been very well communicated by Microsoft and there has been plenty of time to work with Vista to be ready. Logitech for the g15 even says XP or Vista is required, yet there is no Vista support information or driver downloads (the XP drivers and software do work).

Gaming performance seems slightly reduced, however I'm expecting Nvidia will be releasing new drivers that will be more optimal for Vista. Additionally while not too slow, upgrades for my Geforce 7800GT and Jess's Geforce 7600GT are likely on the not to distant horizon.