Intel i7 930

3 x 2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600

EVGA GTX 285 SC

4 x 1TB Smsung spinpoint F3 in RAID 5

Asus P6X58D Premium Mobo

Processor: 6.3
Memory: 5.5
Graphics: 3.7
Gaming Graphics: 3.3
Primary disk drive:5.9


This is my new computer. It performs 100% for intended use (browse internet).

Got a slow computer, huh?



 

Everything measurable, as near as I can tell.



Major UI improvements. The taskbar is cleaned up (kind of OSX style, similar to the dock), window management is improved (you can snap windows to the left/right 50% of your display), and with a graphics card that doesn't suck, the Aero eye candy is very cool with no performance penalty.



Speed. For kicks, I threw XP on a spare partition on this machine. It's noticeably slower. This might be the first time that Microsoft released an operating system that's FASTER than the last one, on the same hardware.



64-bit drivers are actually available (I don't know that I've ever seen somebody use x64 XP outside of a lab), and the 64-bit apps actually work. The ability to address more than 4GB of RAM is nice.



Support for TRIM on SSD's. There's no way I'd run a SSD on anything other than Win7 (of the Microsoft OS's, anyway). It's also smart enough to disable ReadyBoost if you have a SSD.



Security is vastly improved, and the improvements are too lengthy to detail. They revamped everything.



You can naively mount a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) image as a drive. Way cool. You can even boot off of one.



Wireless configuration becomes stupid easy (like Apple easy), and you can easily configure your machine to act as an AP, if you'd like.



Disaster Recovery - this is huge. The backup and restore functionality is actually usable, negating the need to use any third party solutions for all but specialized cases. With an external drive plugged in, you can IMAGE your machine (while Windows is running!). Set it all up on a schedule, leave an external drive plugged in, and forget about it. If your hard drive takes a complete shit, recovery is as simple as replacing it, booting off your Win7 CD with your external drive plugged in, and selecting the day you'd like to restore to. Done.



Networking Locations - I can have different settings for different networks. When I'm using an EVDO card, the firewall is automatically enabled. When I'm at home or at work, it's turned off. When I'm at work, my default printer is different than when I'm at home...stuff like that. It's all automatic, too.



You can burn ISO images to CD or DVD natively (it's about time).



Libraries - You can group folders in different locations together as a library collection. Handy as fuck.





There isn't a single thing I can think of in XP that I consider better. As a matter of fact, I get visibly irritated when I'm forced to use an XP machine.



 

Zack,



To give an idea of what it's like to run Windows 7 on a thoroughly
modern machine (mine isn't anywhere near an "extreme" build - I don't
even game with it), consider bloated applications like Adobe Reader. On
my machine (from a cold boot), it's finished loading as soon as my finger gets off the mouse button. It's almost the same for Outlook 2010 (I get a brief half second glimpse of the splash screen).



How about boot times? From a cold boot (with auto-login enabled and Firefox in my startup folder taking me to arfcom), I'm done in 25 seconds. All but 12 seconds of that is by BIOS POST process. Again, once Windows starts to load off the drive, it's a mere 12 seconds until I'm surfing arfcom.

Processor: 7.5

Memory: 7.5

Graphics: 7.8

Gaming Graphics: 7.8

Primary disk drive: 5.9





I'm still a little pissed over the disk score. They kick you square in the balls when you don't have an SSD drive. The ironic part is that I have 3 friends that went to them during upgrades and I still beat them loading into games regularly.

There are a lot of SSD's out there that aren't much better (some worse) than the best SATA III drives, especially during sustained writes. Intel pretty much owns, here.



If you do get one, get an Intel X25-M. It's as good as it gets, until you get into the $600 range.





 

I think that's why the caching SATA controller I'm using never actually got a public releae. With 4GB od DDR it really lets you speed up SATA drives, but only in comparison to mid-price SSD.  And their target price was over $1K, and there simply isn't a big enough market for desktop users who need massive internal RAID performance, though it can support aditional external drives.

It was a good idea, and may still make it out as a commercial product if thay can target a lower price.

7.5
7.5
7.4
7.4
5.9

Fast cold starts are what I really appreciate. My newest pc and Windows 7x64 is really quick to boot up.

I appreciate the feedback on SSD drives - looks like I will consider an Intel X25-M sometime this year.

Another question since I've seen a few people that have the ASUS PX58D Premium Mobo - has anyone tried loading all RAM banks?  I'm running a 3 x 2GB setup, I've considered eventually bumping up to a 6 x 2GB setup down the road, but I seem to recall some reviews on Newegg stating there was not much room to fill each slot.

Edit - I don't have any need for 12GB RAM right now, just a thought on the feasability of it I suppose.

Edit 2 - nevermind, apparently people on newegg are doing it fine.

http://guru3d.com/news/intel-brings-trim-to-ssds-in-raid/





 

I really need to look into over-clocking mine.



Specs:

Cooler Master 932 HAF

Intel i7 920 w/CoolerMaster V8 cooler

EVGA X58 SLI LE motherboard

Crucial Tracer 3x2g RAM

Sapphire 5770 ATI video

Corsair TX750W power supply

Intel X25-M 80GB SSD & 2x WD 1T Caviar Blacks

Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

Klipsch 2.1 ProMedia speakers

Logitech illuminated keyboard and MX518 mouse



 

Intel has also released a value 40gb that's more entry level.  The X25-V.





 

That article is flat incorrect. Per Intel, TRIM is supported when an Intel Chipset and Intel I/O Controller Hub supporting Intel Rapid Storage Technology is in RAID mode (caveat #1), and for drives that are not part of an array (caveat #2).



The link in the article to a driver update is for Intel chipsets that support RST, and not all motherboards have such a chipset.



At present, there is no support for TRIM for drives that are part of an array. Prior to that driver update, SSD's that were on an RST-enabled RAID controller (but still not part of an array) didn't support TRIM. Now they do...but not if part of an array.





 

That sounds somewhat similar to my experiences with windows 7 and my SSD setup.

The longest part of my boot process is my raid controller's detection portion. Even counting that, by the time I press the power button on the computer, sit down in my chair, turn on the TV and get my keyboard ready, the computer is at the login screen.

Programs start instantly. Game loading screens are all but gone. I love it

Clearly I need to send an angry email.  I was promised TRIM pass-through to arrays on ICH10R controllers with 9.6.



 

wimply basic non-overclocked i7 system
7.5
7.5
7.3
7.3
5.9

Processor:  7.1
Memory:  7.1
Graphics: 7.4
Gaming Graphics: 7.4
Primary disk drive: 7.4

(Core i3 530, 8gb cheap RAM, Radeon 5770, Intel X-25m 160 GB SSD)

I thought WD Black harddrives were supposed to be really good, yet my laptop's 5400rpm drive scored .1 lower then it!

Processor: 6.7

Memory: 5.9

Graphics: 5.0

Gaming Graphics: 6.1

Primary disk drive: 5.9



Is there anyway I can improve it?

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 975 @ 3.33GHz            7.6
Memory (RAM) 12.0 GB                                                     7.6
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285                                     7.4
Gaming graphics 4095 MB Total available graphics memory   7.4
Primary hard disk 97GB Free (296GB Total)                          7.9
Windows 7 Professional

laptop or desktop?

 

Samsung R580  laptop with a i5 processor.



 

Specs on my Laptop:

Lenovo 14" Y460
Core i5 520M
4gb 1066Mhz DDR3
ATI 5650 (switchable)
500gb 5400rpm

Specs on Desktop:
(Built from scratch 2 years ago for $550)

Intel E7200 core 2 duo, clocked at 3.8Ghz in below score, can go to 4.25Ghz
4gb OCZ Reaper DDR2 1150Mhz
Zotac 8800GT AMP! 740/1800/2100
DFI P35
WD Black 750GB




Its sad to see how much 1066MHZ DDR3 sucks, especially considereding its 2x2gb, where my desktop is 4x1gb DDR2 and scores so much higher.

Not much you can do about that then, I bet the laptop is using the Intel HD Graphics Accelerator, that's basically a GPU that's directly onboard the I5 processor.

 

7.4
7.4
4.2
6.3
5.9

It has a dedicated Nvidia ( I know ATI is probably better ) graphics card.  I think 1/2 gig of dedicated memory.





 

3.1 because of graphics

5.7
5.7
4.1
3.4
5.7

On my laptop.  Only play Starcraft 2 so I'm not too worried about speed.

My 1 1/2 year old gaming laptop...

5.9
5.9
6.8
6.8
5.8

Not too bad for a laptop with a 17inch 1920x1200 screen

I have no idea what this really means, but here it is:

I got the lead/tie for minimum so far on my 2+year old build with a few upgrades.

My 1+ year old ASUS in totally stock config/clock speeds



Processor: 7.5

Memory: 7.5

Graphics: 7.2

Gaming Graphics: 7.2

Primary HDD: 5.9



Intel i7 920

9GB of OEM ram

Nvidia Geforce 260 GTX

Hitachi 1TB OEM HDD

Win7 64 Bit home premium

Gateway FX Laptop <input type="button" value="Print this page" onclick="ShowPrintDialog();" style="width: 150px; height: 31px;" />

Component Details Subscore Base score Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8300 @ 2.40GHz 6.0 subscore 5.8 Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB 6.0 Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS 5.9 Gaming graphics 2303 MB Total available graphics memory 5.8 Primary hard disk 261GB Free (359GB Total) 5.9

7.4     amd x6 1055t
7.5    4gb 1600 ddr3
7.6    ati 4890 factory oc
7.6    
5.9  500gb sata

Had the 1055t to 4ghz, but I cant pass the prime blend test even at the stock frequency,so I think I got a bad stick of ram.

Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz	6.4	subscore 5.7
Memory (RAM)	4.00 GB	6.4
Graphics	NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT	6.8
Gaming graphics	2815 MB Total available graphics memory	6.8
Primary hard disk	327GB Free (466GB Total)	5.7

Proc: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Thuban


Mem:  2 x 2GB Corsair Dominator GT 1866 240 pin DDR3


Vid Card:  EVGA Geforce GTX 470(Fermi)


Hard Drive:  WD Velociraptor WD1500HLFS 150GB