In May, I realised that over the course of the last few years some of my so called geek status might have been fading, as I lamented that I hadn’t taken the side panel off my computer for over 2 years. Over the last fortnight, I can confirm that I have been quietly re-estabilshing my geek-fu with the following hardware acquisitions:

• Intel Core 2 3.0Ghz CPU
• Asus P5E Motherboard
• Asus GF8800GT 512MB
• Corsair TWIN2X2048 8500C5D 2GB
• Western Digital 74G SATA Raptor 10000 rpm HDD (16Mb Cache)
• Western Digital 500G SATAII 7200 rpm HDD (16Mb Cache)
• Liteon 20x DVD Dual Layer DVD+/-R SATA
• CoolerMaster Real Power 550W Extreme

At the same time, I have installed Windows Vista Business, which was a pretty seamless exercise. After using it for the last fortnight, Windows Vista is certainly a visual upgrade from Windows XP Professional however there are a few things that keep getting in my road. Once I’ve fixed those and the Vista driver problems I’ve been having, I’ll reevaluate whether it is worth downgrading to Windows XP Professional.

Besides those few little problems I’ve had with Vista and driver support, the new computer components sure do hammer. I’ve been playing Counter Strike:Source, Team Fortress 2 and a few other games with the highest settings I can manage and it isn’t missing a beat.

For those that are interested, the Vista performance information for that above hardware is:

• Processor, 5.6
• Memory, 5.9
• Graphics, 5.9
• Gaming Graphics, 5.9
• Primary Hard Disk, 5.9

I chuckled when my slowest component was my 3.0Ghz CPU!