She's running just fine. I have to admit that I was amazed at the graphic beauty and detail that this budget/mainstream system could produce. I was sitting in the graphics menu of Mirror's Edge figuring I could turn some stuff on high and have some really detailed textures. My friend James sitting next to me, "Just turn 'em all up son." That's just what we did. And it ran. And it ran without a hitch!
Going down memory lane I can remember paying $300 for a videocard ( Radeon 9800 ) and being super excited to plug it in and hook it up. It ran most of the games that I had on medium or high detail but at an average of 1024x768 or MAYBE 1280x1024. The $200 wonder, the 4890 ran pretty much everything out of the box at maxed out details. It really only has problems with problem type games (specifically poorly coded games) ARMA2, and a Need for Speed title that wasn't overly pretty when cranked up to begin with.
Overclocking this has been a joy (mostly). The motherboard is full and capable of doing some serious work in the overclocking department. However, a review on newegg.com has pushed me to ease up on the overclocking, at least for the moment. Being told that the board burned out when a chip was running at stock voltage does not put good things into one's mind. I have been running the computer at 3.3ghz up from 3. All stock voltages have let me do this without a problem. Only issue I've had here is that for awhile the bios would not work with a USB keyboard. I had a regular keyboard connector that I hooked up and then I had no problem, but Legacy USB decides to come and go as it pleases.
Another problem I ran into is while it is prime stable it has locked up on me two or three times. It isn't a blue screen or a boot down, just a hard lock. The hard locks have not been in intense situations either, they only came when I was installing or uninstalling a game or moving files around. This leads me to believe that it might not be overclock related but an issue with an aging hard drive.
The upgrade list has a new harddrive on it for now, we will see if I can hold out long enough for the price point of SSD's to come down. I can pay $60 now for a decent SATA hard drive or I can wait 3-6 months to pay $150 for a blazer of an SSD. I am also waiting becuase I would love to see the price of harddrives after the fact of SSDs. They should be cheaper than dirt.
Overall the system is working well and I am still very happy with it. Remember if you're making a build to put more emphasis really on the cores of the system than the accessories. I should have went for a better motherboard, and also a fresh harddrive. We are seeing the results of cutting corners right here and now.
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