A Nice Binary Dance

The new processor for this machine arrived yesterday. I replaced a 2.2 gig Athlon 64, 512K L2 cache single core that has done a good job, but strained under the pressure of Guild Wars. Even though it would hold up under this intense game being open and having several browser windows open the monitor showed a constant 100% usage. The new CPU is an Opteron 2.4 gig, 2 megs of L2 cache and it is dual core. The difference in these two chips is phenomenal.

One of the most attractive things about Guild Wars is the rendering. This game is beautiful. It is not cartoonish looking like World of Warcraft. The skies look real, the oceans and rivers look real and fire looks real. Detail is great. You can see the individual blades of grass blowing in a field. Beagle makes us slow down every once in a while and look around at the tremendous work accomplished by the coders at ArenaNet - NCSoft. Thanks Beagle. You can take a look at some of the artwork at GuildWars.com.

This motherboard is over 6 months old the 939 socket is no longer current, bleeding edge technology. It has been replaced by the AM2 socket. Processors were becoming scarce for the 939. A decision was made to keep this machine intact and upgrade the CPU. This was done after much discussion and research online. It's a true winner. The ease of installation, the massive heat sink (it looks like something out of Star Wars with copper tubes and stuff everywhere), the instant compatibility all combined for a very easy switch. The most difficult part of the project was pushing the case back into the desk. Thanks Mudslingr.

Since this is my first AMD machine in many years it's nice to report such results. Now i must get away from it and go work. It will be fun to return home tonight. Enjoy Tuesday, Monday was yesterday (I hope, lol).

"Do you think dyslexic people have difficulty dancing to 'Y.M.C.A.'?"
~Dave Sokolowski