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LifestreamI said almost two years ago that an upgrade was inevitable. But I guess I managed to hold out just a little longer. And it was Unreal Tournament 2007 (by that time renamed to Unreal Tournament 3) that became the final breaking point. That and Crysis. I doubt I will ever own a system that I will be able to run so thoroughly into the ground again. Yet, with the same intent I went for a quad core system, even though the real benefits of a quad core system may not be visible until a year or more down the line. If they will ever be, before the next technology breakthrough comes along. And yes, it did feel kind of bad going from AMD to Intel but I didn’t have much of a choice now did I.
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Everything has been moving along nicely with the setup. The main gripe is power consumption, especially with the 2900Pro. The computer is idling at 137W and maxing out CPU and GPU will bring it to no less than 310W. Plus the 100W or so CRT monitor that I still insist upon using. I knew there were side effects with the 2900Pro, but the card still managed to disappoint in terms of noise level and power consumption. And ATI/AMD have managed to screw up the driver support royally since last time I looked. It has after all been a while since I’ve tried any new games that uses any of the more complex DX9 features. If I’d had another PCI-E card I would have used it and waited for the GT8800, but I was stuck with a long line of AGP cards so …
Also, I have not been able to get a good overclock with the Q6600 despite being the G0/SLACR stepping. At least not in the time it took me to lose my temper. Plus I realized that I still had to get C1E and EIST working even with an oc and so I canned that whole idea. Better to save it for a rainy day when a few percent more speed might actually make a difference.
