INSTALLED.
The motherboard is definitely better than anything I've used before. It pretty much has features for its features' features, about a zillion hook-ups, and it just feels less like a cheap board than most of the ones I've used. The SATA cables went into the board with a nice *click*, the PCI-E ports have a very accessible lock switch that both holds the card well and doesn't feel like it's going to snap off, the memory snapped in smoothly yet firmly so that the modules are firmly in the board but not impossible to remove, and the CPU lever is just intense. That processor ain't going nowhere.
It also has a bunch of nifty whiz-bang features, like a CMOS reset switch conveniently located in the back and a redundant BIOS (the latter isn't exactly new, or rocket science, but it's still a nice-to-have that I never had). It also has about a bazillion connectors. In addition to the two FireWire ports and eight USB ports available on the back, it also has an on-board FireWire header and three on-board USB headers for front connections. Yikes.
Anyhoo, now that it's up and running, here's the results from the CPU test in 3DMark Vantage:
System Specs
============
Old
---
Asus P5N-D Motherboard (nForce 750i)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (2.5 GHz)
2 x 2GB Corsair XMS2 DHX RAM (4-4-4-12)
ATI Radeon HD 5830 - 1GB GDDR5 (256-bit)
New
---
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R (Intel X58)
Intel Core i7 930 (2.8GHz)
3 x 2GB Corsair XMS3 (9-9-9-24)
ATI Radeon HD 5830 - 1GB GDDR5 (256-bit)
3DMark Vantage Benchmarks (only CPU tests were performed)
=========================================================
Old: 9178
New: 18384
Yikes. So I basically doubled my processing power and graphical performance in the last two months.
Probably the most disappointing thing are the results of the Windows Performance Assessment. I mean, Vista's implementation was flawed at the upper-end, but it was still a pretty solid way of rating computers and it's a great shame that more developers didn't take advantage of it.
Windows 7's implementation, however, is a complete and utter joke. Despite a massive increase in graphical prowess, the score for my GPU only jumped from 6.9 to 7.6. And, even curiouser, despite this CPU whooping the shit out of my last one in every way, shape, and form, the CPU score only went from 7.2 to 7.5.
That makes absolutely no sense. If anything, the ratings should have been made more granular -- like Vista -- and simply went up higher. Apparently, the difference between 3.0-5.0 is about the same as the difference from 6.5-6.6.
Not to mention that pretty much the only way that you're going to get the hard drive test to go up is by buying a solid state drive and plugging it into a 6GB/s SATA port. I don't exactly know what the test criteria for that is, but I have yet to see a system go above 5.9. Considering it rates the entire system based on the lowest component, you could have a solid gaming machine that scores a 5.9 simply because the builder didn't have half a grand to blow on an undersized, yet shockingly speedy, hard drive.
Considering all of the good things that Windows 7 has, the fact that a good, slightly flawed system was made to be complete shit is just awful.
In other news, since ad blocking for Google Chrome is maturing to the point of being able to stop ads from downloading, I decided to switch to Google Chrome until Firefox catches up to everyone else. I've used it exclusively at work for several months now and it's amazing how far it's come. Switching to it for my home use was the next logical step, I suppose.
Edit: OHHHH MAAAHHH GAAWWWWD I finally have a desktop computer that can go into and out of sleep without dying. PRAISE THE LAWD!