Well my new parts arrived on Monday, despite the fact that I was originally supposed to get them on Friday. There was a mix up in when the package was to be delivered, but in the end they made it to my place. After work, I promptly set to installing them. Overall, I am very satisfied with the results.

The first thing I set to installing was the CPU cooler. My original worries about the Freezer 7 Pro turned out to be unfounded. While there was a little trick to installing this, once I figured it out, it was quite simple. I did end up taking it off at one point so I'm wondering if that will affect the pre applied thermal paste in a negative way. I may, later on down the road, reapply with some thermal paste I have from before. Performance-wise, the Freezer 7 Pro only seemed to drop my temps by a few degress on average. The big surprise, instead, was the difference in volume between the old cooler and the new one. When I originally turned on the PC after installation I was worried that something went wrong because it was so much quieter. A quick double check relieved me of my worries. So the bottom line was this upgrade gave me a little more cooling and a considerable amount of noise reduction which is a-okay in my book.

Second to install was the videocard, the MSI N9600GT. I originally worried that it would be too big to fit in the motherboard due to the southbridge heatsink. As it turns out, though, there was plenty of room for the card and it went in like a charm. Where the CPU cooler gave me a unexpected benefit, this new card gave me exactly what I was asking for. Not only does this new GPU run 20-30 degrees Celsius cooler than my old 6800 Ultra, I doubled my 3DMark06 benchmark. I think I can easily say this was one of the best computer hardware related purchases I've ever made.

Lastly was the 250 gig SATA hard drive. Here's where there was a little hiccup in things. Since I bought the drive OEM, it didn't come with any cables. I didn't realize that I didn't have a spare SATA cable till it arrived, so I wasn't able to actually install it until I was able to get a hold of one this morning. Had to check a few different places in town, but I finally came up with one. SATA cable in hand, I installed the new drive and got to installing games.

So far, I can only say good things about this experience. I got all I could really ask for and more out of the money I spent. Now I can get back to gaming on the PC, and I do have some catching up to do. One example of this catching up is The Witcher. I had originally planned on waiting for the Enhanced Edition, but since I was fortunate enough to get a free copy with the video card, I'll probably end up playing it sooner. Some other games I plan on installing and giving another go on are S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl (Hopefully I'll be able to use Dx9 lighting this time) and the always awesome Company of Heroes (I'll really be able to crank the graphics up now). Hell I even had a thought of playing Oblivion again, against my best judgement.