The Sports Photo Guy

I have begn the process of upgrading my various systems – currently running a mixture of XP Pro, Vista Ultimate Disaster, and Vista Home Premature – to Windows 7.  I am recounting the experience here.  My second system upgrade is complete.

Updated 12/6/2009. I completed the upgrade of my primary workstation from Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.  While I am intending for this machine to become a dedicated “office computer” when I build a new monster “PhotoShop computer” that will run Windows 7 Professional, for now this machine will continue to double for everyday tasks like email, word processing, and the like, as well as PhotoShop CS4 and all the related software.

The system runs on an AMD Phenom 9500 quad-core running at 2.2 GHz; 4GB of DDR2 800 MHz RAM, and 8500GT graphics.  Like the file server, this machine likewise underwent a massive increase in graphics speed under PC Pitstop’s performance tests.  It turns in a Windows Experience Index of 4.6, once again limited by the graphics subscore.

More info on practical performance on the quad-core machine will come in a future update.   Meanwhile, the file server doubled as my primary email and web browsing machine while the quad-core was undergoing a modest rebuild in preparation for Windows 7.  Not much to complain about when using it in that role; Internet Explorer 8 was reasonably snappy, and OpenOffice 2.4 was adequate to the task of preparing invoices.  Adobe Flash performance was a bit sluggish, but I blame this more on the hardware than Windows.

First system to be upgraded was my file server.  Its specs are quite modest: Athlon 64 3200+ single-core processor, with 1GB of dual-channel RAM (1T timing), and 8400 GS graphics.  It boots from a 500GB Seagate IDE drive, but its primary function is to support 2 1.36TB RAID 5 arrays; one internal, one external in a Buffalo Turbo USB enclosure.

I’m fairly pleased.  The machine now has the bells-and-whistles Vista interface, and then some, while running about as smoothly as it did under XP Pro.  Interestingly, my PC Pitstop performance test on this machine before and after showed a remarkable boost in 2D graphics performance (from 71 MP/sec under XP to 150 MP/sec under Win 7).  The Windows Experience Index is a mere 3.3, however, based on the graphics subscore.  Still, the system is adequate to its secondary task of web browsing (I’m writing this article on it now while updates download and install in the background, and everything runs smoothly).

Total upgrade time was only about an hour, for the “custom” (clean) install.

Next up: primary workstation.  This promises to be a real challenge.