Whoa, fast!
Oct. 1st, 2009 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnridleyThe UPS man brought us two boxes from Newegg last night, and T and I spend about 90 minutes assembling the new computer. He'd never done it before, so he enjoyed that. Hopefully seeing me being very careful about things, and reading the manual about things I wasn't sure about, might stick in his brain and register at some future point.
(specs: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66 GHz, Gigabyte MB, 4GB 1066MHz DDR2 RAM, 500GB 7200 RPM SATA2 system drive, nVidia 9500 GT dual DVI video card, Samsung SATA DVD burner, Corsair 80%+ green power supply, plus a 1T and 1.5T drive moved from the old system)
I realized that this was the first Intel CPU I've installed since leaving CMX what, 17 years ago? So much for the iconoclast. And to make it worse, I installed Windows 7, which doesn't even SHIP until the 22nd. But hey, the Core 2 is a damned nice CPU, and for whatever reason, Windows 7 isn't irritating me like Vista did at first glance.
Anyway, the thing is fast. The old one wouldn't even play HD video. This one plays it better than the camcorder does, and doesn't even bother one of the cores very much while doing it. The video editor (Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate), which was incredibly slow and difficult, now responds totally in real time; the preview window shows where I am in real time as I drag the timeline cursor around. Now that it's not painful to use the editing software, I might actually get around to working with some home video.
They said they worked on boot and program start times, and it shows. Firefox launches and is ready to run in less than 5 seconds (I didn't time it, maybe better than that; it's just fast). Bootup is really pretty quick, again I didn't time it but I think it is faster than a fresh install of XP, or at least not slower.
Regarding Windows 7 decorations (glowy buttons, etc) - that kind of stuff really pissed me off before, but it doesn't now. I think it may be because this machine is so fast that I don't feel like it's stealing resources that I need to do them. Or maybe MS finally just got those effects to feel natural to me. I'm resisting the temptation to just skin Win7 to look like Win2K - I really need to get familiar with the newer stuff, because I'm finding myself fumbling around more and more when I am a guest on someone else's computer, and I don't like that.
Downside: The cheap webcam that I bought for $15 a while back doesn't work. No 64 bit drivers, even on the website, and it's not clear that they're even planning to work on them. But that's it for compatibility as far as I can tell. I actually didn't use a single driver disc; Win7 just had drivers for everything, and grabbed an updated video driver for my specific video chipset after installation. If I have to buy a $25 webcam (or just not have one) I guess that's a pretty small price.
One thing I couldn't believe is that MS *STILL* thinks it's a good idea to hide file extensions, and it's a little harder to change the setting now (it's hidden in the control panel).
(specs: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66 GHz, Gigabyte MB, 4GB 1066MHz DDR2 RAM, 500GB 7200 RPM SATA2 system drive, nVidia 9500 GT dual DVI video card, Samsung SATA DVD burner, Corsair 80%+ green power supply, plus a 1T and 1.5T drive moved from the old system)
I realized that this was the first Intel CPU I've installed since leaving CMX what, 17 years ago? So much for the iconoclast. And to make it worse, I installed Windows 7, which doesn't even SHIP until the 22nd. But hey, the Core 2 is a damned nice CPU, and for whatever reason, Windows 7 isn't irritating me like Vista did at first glance.
Anyway, the thing is fast. The old one wouldn't even play HD video. This one plays it better than the camcorder does, and doesn't even bother one of the cores very much while doing it. The video editor (Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate), which was incredibly slow and difficult, now responds totally in real time; the preview window shows where I am in real time as I drag the timeline cursor around. Now that it's not painful to use the editing software, I might actually get around to working with some home video.
They said they worked on boot and program start times, and it shows. Firefox launches and is ready to run in less than 5 seconds (I didn't time it, maybe better than that; it's just fast). Bootup is really pretty quick, again I didn't time it but I think it is faster than a fresh install of XP, or at least not slower.
Regarding Windows 7 decorations (glowy buttons, etc) - that kind of stuff really pissed me off before, but it doesn't now. I think it may be because this machine is so fast that I don't feel like it's stealing resources that I need to do them. Or maybe MS finally just got those effects to feel natural to me. I'm resisting the temptation to just skin Win7 to look like Win2K - I really need to get familiar with the newer stuff, because I'm finding myself fumbling around more and more when I am a guest on someone else's computer, and I don't like that.
Downside: The cheap webcam that I bought for $15 a while back doesn't work. No 64 bit drivers, even on the website, and it's not clear that they're even planning to work on them. But that's it for compatibility as far as I can tell. I actually didn't use a single driver disc; Win7 just had drivers for everything, and grabbed an updated video driver for my specific video chipset after installation. If I have to buy a $25 webcam (or just not have one) I guess that's a pretty small price.
One thing I couldn't believe is that MS *STILL* thinks it's a good idea to hide file extensions, and it's a little harder to change the setting now (it's hidden in the control panel).
