I just upgraded my 16-month-old AMD 5000+ to an AMD 6400+ and my NVIDIA 7950GT-KO to an NVIDIA 8800GT and my 3DMark06 score of 5,704 rose to 11,338 (almost double). More importantly, games will be running more smoothly! :) I’ve been waiting to do this upgrade before playing through HL2:EP2, BioShock, Crysis, and CoD4. Hopefully I can find some time for gaming this summer!

One reason I chose the MSI NX8800GT video card is that it comes overclocked and runs cooler than most of the regular 8800GTs. It accomplishes this by taking up 2 PCI slots with its giant heatsink. Unfortunately it’s also so long that I had to remove a hard drive from the opposite side of the case just to make it fit! I need to consolidate my drives anyway, so this will give me some motivation.

Now I just need to get my Steam account working so I can play some games. For some reason I got locked out of it yesterday and their password reset process isn’t working so well.

If you’re interested in buying my used AMD 5000+ or NVIDIA 7950GT-KO just send me an email.

Last week the desktop computer I had been using since my junior year in high school began breaking down in ways strange enough to warrant its retirement. I’m sure I could have fixed it by replacing a few parts but it’s obviously much more exciting to build a brand new rig! Thanks to Newegg I’m now running:

• eVGA GeForce 7950GT 512MB KO (link)
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (link)
• ASUS M2N-SLI (link)
• 2BG of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 (link)
• 2x250g WD SATA2 drives in RAID 1 (losing drives is painful!)
• Other power-hungry parts
• 700w OCZ power supply (no I don’t need 700w, but it was only $10 more than the 520w!)

It’s nice being able to revisit the games that ran poorly on my old machine such as Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Hitman: Blood Money, etc. I haven’t found a game that this rig can’t handle, but I’m sure I won’t be saying that for too much longer. Better enjoy it while I can. :)