Here’s how they compared:

As you can see, the new computer did a lot better in pretty much everything.  The benefits of having multiple cores can be seen in the CD rip + Portal test and in processing multiple images with The GIMP.

The 3Dmark test aren’t comparable since Vantage won’t run on the old system, but needless to say the graphics are much better.  Portal can be played at 1920 x 1200 at fully maxed settings and not break a sweat.  

The system boot times were comparable, but windows is usable a lot faster because all the startup programs load fairly quickly.

The VelociRaptor drive also lived up to its reputation for speediness, which is good since it was really expensive.

In the future, I’ll post some more game benchmarks as well as seeing how overclocking the new system can affect the results.

Here are some pictures of my new computer, its components, and a few pics of it being put together. So far it seems to be working well.

When I first started using the CPU core temps were about 32 C in the bios. Then in windows, they were up around 38-40. I thought it was a little high for idle at stock speeds (in a freezing cold room), but those temps weren’t too terrible. But then when I ran prime95 stress testing, the temperatures jumped to 78-80 C. Those temps aren’t gonna wreck the CPU, but they were much too high for stock speeds, even under full load. So I unmounted the CPU and cooler, cleaned off the thermal paste, and reapplied the thermal paste using a smaller amount than I had used previously. Then I remounted the CPU and cooler.

This resulted in temps of 30-35 C idle and 60 C under stress testing. Now, I think the temps are pretty reasonable. I think I used too much thermal paste the first time. And the cooler might not have been firmly seated since I had a lot of trouble attaching the fan to the heatsink, and probably jostled it a little bit.

Update: I’m bored at school so, I’ll write a few more thoughts about the new computer.

The one problem I’ve had is that few times after starting up or rebooting the computer, the computer posts and then fails to load windows (or maybe it freezes up prior to the point when Windows should load).  I’m not sure if this is random, or if it corresponds to doing something in the computer (i.e. unplugging the computer and plugging in a new component).  It seems to fix itself if I load the bios settings (even if I don’t change anything) and then reboot.  Gonna have to check on this problem a little more if it keeps happening.

I ran memtest86 overnight and didn’t get any errors, so it looks like the RAM is good.  I left the prime95 stress test running when I went to school.  If that runs error free and the temps stay within an acceptable range the whole time, I’ll know the CPU is stable at stock settings, which is probably good to know before I start trying to overclock.

Windows Vista User Account control pisses me off.   For those that haven’t used Vista, basically whenever you do something that needs administrator rights, it pops up with a message asking for confirmation.   The reason this is annoying is that it does it even when you are logged into the administrator account.  Furthermore, it requires confirmation for mundane tasks, like running disk defrag or setting the system clock.  And every time you run a program that is just an executable file (like putty or CPUz), it asks if you want to run the unknown program, not matter how many times you’ve approved it in the past.  In many ways, I understand why they did this, but the execution is poor.  Since many people use their computer as the admin user for everyday use, they require confirmation so that malicious software doesn’t cause trouble without the user noticing.  But surely they could have implemented this such that it was less annoying. For example, remembering that an executable file has been authorized and not requiring authorization for mundane tasks like disk defrag.

My windows Vista compatiblity score was 5.9, which is currently the highest score.

I ran Portal in 1920 x 1200 with all the graphics maxed and got good frame rates around.  I actually turned on vsync to get rid of some taring.  I guess, for my 60 Hz monitor, if my frame rate never drops below 60 fps, and the graphics are maxed, vsync makes since right?  Steady 60 fps looks good for most everything, yeah? And even if the GPU is pumping out  200 fps, only 60 fps are visible  since that is how often the monitor updates its image.  One problem with vsync apparently is that if the fps drops below the monitor refresh rate, performance degrades quickly. For example, if the video card renders 30 fps, maybe only 20 fps would be displayed because some frames are lost waiting to sync with the monitor.

So far, the monitor, the CPU cooler, and the Blu-ray burner have arrived.  The case has shipped and should get here in a day or two.  The rest of the parts are on the way to my brother in Colorado.  He should get them in a couple days, and then it’ll take about a week to ship them to Japan.

Here are some pics of what’s come so far:

From New Computer

From New Computer

From New Computer

From New Computer