WELL DEMARLOW: agreed,,, I bought a pre issue W8 my mid grandson said "why did you do that,,, 8 is for pads"
My experience with xp and 7 same as yours... and going with 7 caused me problems with some software although I have some W-98 that works on virtual xp in w-7.
Regarding AMD: "
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-1445-2.html" consider you bought a package and if you had spent the same money for an intel HP, you would probably been less impressed. I is not the AMD, rather the whole package. You were told AMD was better for graphics, but not the case, rather it was lower cost to build and so easer to sell at a lower price or higher profit or both....
I purchased a mid range HP 4 years ago, saying to my self that the era of DIY home build was over,, DIY was more expensive than the package.... well I returned it after one weekend,,, there were restrictions on what I,,, the owner,,, was allowed to do or mod in the firmware/BIOS Hay, mine HP,, I bought it...don't restrict me. My DIY unit is an AMD with 8 gig RAM and on my second graphics board,,, this one is a 1 gig RAM... although it is DDR3, but that is not as good as a 500 meg of DDR5 which is designed for graphics... DIY allows evolution....
So I took the HP back for having just what was needed for running and not a drop more.... when building a DIY, I tend to overkill ,,, max RAM, multi HD, Hi Watt power supply and good graphics board ... lots of fans and porch screen to filter out dust from CPU. . Took my sound board out and love the on-board sound.. fine... I own it I mod it... same goes with my cameras.