Sunday, June 6, 2010

New Hardware

I haven't been gaming for a couple of weeks; first I was on vacation, and then I had to find the time to build a new PC.

I love my new PC.  For the geeks and other PC gamers out there, the rough specs:
  • nvidia GeForce 480 (EVGA)
  • Intel i7-930 quad-core CPU
  • 6gb triple-channel RAM
  • 1 TB hard drive
  • Blu-Ray reader / DVD-writer optical drive
Windows 7 rates all parts above 7.5 (the GPU it rates 7.8) except for the hard drive, which brings the system down to 5.9.  This is why solid state drives exist... hopefully it's also a reason for them to get affordable in the next couple of years.

If anyone's curious for the actual parts list, here's the NewEgg list.  (I didn't actually buy all of the parts through NewEgg.)  And I really strongly recommend the case and motherboard I used to anyone doing a new build; that case has years of home-builder thought behind it and is just great to work with.  Also pretty.

Now that I can run games newer than 2007 releases, I'll be picking up Divinity 2: Ego Draconis (I loved playing the first one when my old PC was brand-new, in the summer of 2003, so it feels like an appropriate new-PC purchase).  Also on the playlist is Dragon Age: Origins, which we've actually had for a few months but I couldn't run on the old machine.
Also in EQ2 I just managed to get over 60 FPS in a zone that my old PC ran at 4 - 13 FPS.  Woohoo!