Four Cores, Baby!

I mentioned last week that I had a mostly new computer coming in. The case arrived on Monday (filthy teasing UPS), and the CPU and mainboard arrived last night.

Folks, this thing is a computer.

Going from a single-core 2.4 GHz processor to a quad-core 3 GHz may completely change how I view my computer. I’m serious.

I’m still softening my CDs to MP3s, and last night I blew through ripping 7 CDs in about 10 minutes. It would have taken 20 before.

I’m always the last one to finish loading in a Left 4 Dead game. This time the game loaded to the in-game menu in less than a minute, and I was in-game within 2 minutes. I haven’t bumped up my video card yet, but I could at least run with 2x anti-aliasing and 2x anisotropic filtering and high detail on everything else.

GIMP loaded in less than a minute, instead of the normal 2-3. The GIMP. It’s unheard of. I was able to code, use SVN, IM in Pidgin, be SSHed to my server through cygwin, and work in the GIMP without any slowdown.

I had to set my BIOS to “fail-safe defaults” to get Windows to boot past the System Repair area, but I should be able to tweak some things back up to nicer settings.

Now I’m mad that we have our D & D game tonight. I want to huddle upstairs and put up the shelf for my new desk and use this beautiful thing to do work I’m long past due on. …Like wedding save the dates. And editing/publishing the next Witches chapter.