The PC Thread

[Crimson]

Fairly tame in comparisons to BLH's beast. I need more RAM and a better graphics card.

[Earfolds]

Fairly tame in comparisons to BLH's beast. I need more RAM and a better graphics card.

Damn. I knew I had to do something else. Looks like a couple more months of saving for me

Side note, I don't think you need more RAM. It's the speed of the modules themselves that matter more. If your processor and motherboard can handle it, I mean.

[Exxy]

I've got an 8800GT 512mb, 4GB ram and a Q6600 at 3.4ghz. All jizzing onto a 22" screen. I would update the RAM, because it's bog standard stuff I think but I'm not bothered that much. Yet to find something it wont run.

[Master James]

ATI Radeon HD 4890 review

AMD's latest pixel pounding beast is more of a mild overhaul of an existing GPU than an all new architecture. AMD says the chip itself is new, but functionally it's identical to the existing Radeon HD 4870.

With 800 shaders and 40 texture units, that's no bad thing of course. It also has the same 1GB frame buffer and 256-bit bus as the top version of the 4870.

Without any new features, then, what exactly is the point of the 4890? In a word, clockspeed. AMD has upped the chip's core operating frequency from 750MHz on the 4870 to 850MHz. Meanwhile, the clockspeed of the board's GDDR5 memory edges up from 900MHz to 975MHz.

Elegant graphics

At first glance, these are hardly dramatic steps forward. However, the 4870 was already an awesome graphics chip. Perhaps not the very fastest single GPU you could buy, but not far off and certainly the most efficient and elegant graphics processor in the world.

By comparison, Nvidia's competing chips look like pretty blunt instruments. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 may be the fastest graphics chip on the planet, but it's inordinately large and relatively expensive.

Getting back on message, while the new Radeon HD 4890 doesn't bring a huge leap in stock operating frequencies, the pre-launch internet scuttlebutt suggested we should pay close attention to the chip's overclocking prowess. What's more, AMD itself even hinted that 1GHz and beyond on the core might just be possible.

Overclock the 4890

More on that in a moment. First, how does the chip stack up at stock clocks?

Frankly, pretty much as you would expect given the increase in operating frequencies. At the epic 2,560 x 1,600 resolution, it delivers 51fps in the relatively undemanding but fantasically fun Call of Duty 4, thereby carving out a moderate 5fps advantage over the existing 4870 chipset.

That said, it still can't quite match the GeForce GTX 285's 58fps showing.

Moving on to Crysis: Warhead, possibly the most brutal test of graphics performance there is, the new 4890 puts in a playable 26fps performance with details set to maximum and a resolution of 1,680 x 1,050. That's 2fps more than a 4870 and a nicely symmetrical 2fps down on the GTX 285.

As for overclocking, our Asus-branded 4890 board can't quite deliver on the 1GHz hype. 965MHz is all it has in the tank. Still, that's enough to bring it level with the much more expensive GeForce GTX 285 in terms of Crysis performance.

All of which is jolly nice, but exactly how much will you have to pay for it? The 4890 slots in just above the Radeon HD 4870 (that board lives on) but below the Radeon HD 4870 X2 dual-GPU board. As you read these words, the usual UK online retail suspects should already have the card on offer at around the £200 mark.

That's obviously great value compared to a GTX 285. But is it worth the extra £40 over a 4870? At stock clocks, probably not. But with near 1GHz capability, well, we'd find it hard to resist.

And finally...you will not be surprised to learn that Nvidia has prepped a spoiler for the 4890 in the shape of the GeForce GTX 275. It's essentially a down-clocked GTX 285. Nvidia claims it's faster across the board. And it may well be. But pricing will be key – can Nvidia really afford to sell the 275 for as little as £200? We'll soon see.

4/5

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/comput ... 162/review

The GTX275 does do what Nvidia claims. Both are good cards but the GTX275 clearly wins out at the moment for me. It's faster, quieter, a bit cooler, and it's priced cheaper too.

Hexus Review

Bit-tech Review

[bear]

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/acer-launches-first-nvidia-ion-based-nettop-aspirerevo/

Yet again, the rumors were (almost) true. A day earlier than anticipated, Acer is launching what amounts to NVIDIA's first Ion-based nettop beyond those on display at CES and the like. The AspireRevo is debuting today alongside a plethora of other Acer wares, boasting a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 processor, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 250GB of HDD space, a 4-in-1 card reader, HDMI / VGA outputs, gigabit Ethernet, six USB 2.0 sockets, audio in / out, Windows Vista Home Premium / Basic and a svelte black and white enclosure that measures just 7.1- x 7.1- x 1.2-inches. The built-in Ion GPU means that this bugger is completely capable of handling 1080p (and thus, Blu-ray) content, DirectX 10 and even mildly demanding games such as Call of Duty 4 and Spore. Acer's staying mum on a price and release date, but we're still hearing that the late Q2 time frame is a safe bet. Check the full release just past the break.

Hopefully they can announce an ION Netbook before too long.

[aygov]

Graphics card is an 8800GTX.

[zXe]

i get 5.9 for everything apart from cpu, i need to overclock my e8600. i could easily get it to 4ghz easy on this cpu, but i haven't got round to doing it yet..

[tomvek]

Microsoft: Windows 7 RC free for everyone from 5th May

Microsoft has shown its confidence in Windows 7 by announcing that the Release Candidate (RC) will be made available to the general public for a year from 5 May.

The Windows 7 beta has been a huge success for Microsoft, which has been buoyed by the positive feedback to one of its most critical ever releases.

Now, people will be able to effectively trial the new OS for a year before deciding if they want to buy the retail version, with Microsoft confirming that the RC will be readily and freely available to all until June 2010.

A big deal for Microsoft

"It's a big deal for us, Microsoft's Windows OEM Product Manager Laurence Painell told TechRadar.

"Obviously, we are releasing what we feel could be the final version - what we will put out to manufacturers and even wider availability when we release the product to consumers."

"The release candidate is available for everyone. From 30 April it will be available to our IT professionals through MSDN and TechNET, we let them get it in advance.

"Then it will go up on windows.com/download for everybody. There is no limit to the availability and it will be available on 5 May. It will run until 5 June 2010."

Beyond the commercial launch

The lengthy RC availability means that people will be able to try out a full version of Windows 7 well beyond its production version release date, but Microsoft's launch has not been delayed, insists Painell.

"Our official line is that [the production version] will be available no later than January 2010 and we will stick to that, but people will still be able to use the release candidate for nothing until June 2010."

Microsoft's confidence in Windows 7 is such that the prospect of people trying for nothing and, potentially, deciding against the OS, does not phase the company in the slightest.

"There has been a great deal of feedback and a huge amount of it positive through the beta program," adds Painell.

"Obviously the beta program was the widest that we've ever run and the overwhelming response has been positive.

"We're obviously very excited internally about the quality of the product and that's been one of the overwhelming things internally."

Driver support lesson learned

One of the major failings of Windows 7's predecessor Windows Vista was a failure to support thousands of third-party devices when it arrived back in January 2007.

Painell pointed out that Windows 7 should not suffer from the same kind of problems, with the 'eco system' of third-party manufacturers and developers all deeply involved in making sure that consumers should quickly get their attached devices up and running quickly with the correct drivers.

"From an ecosystem perspective, which is obviously imperative, we've had about 32,000 participants from 10,000 different partners – which has been split 50/50 between hardware and software vendors.

"That's obviously a big part of what we need to do to make sure we have a successful launch. We're making sure that the companies that are providing software and hardware that supports Windows are ready for it as well.

"I think that 2.8 million devices have been reported as compatible during the beta program but 75 per cent of those are available in the box for the RC and 90 per cent are available either in the box, from a Microsoft update or through links through to different partner vendor websites."

You can download Windows 7 Release Candidate from 5 May from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/. Normal provisos are in place about needing a clean install and to make sure all data is backed up on the PC you are putting the OS on to.

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... one-595666

Microsoft Downloads

[Stig]

Ooooo.

Might get rid of Vista completely then and do a complete reinstall.

Though I guess I'd have to do the same when I went from RC to "Release"?

[SEP]

I have a question - if I were to do a clean install of Windows 7, would Steam allow me to re-download my games?

[That]

I have a question - if I were to do a clean install of Windows 7, would Steam allow me to re-download my games?

yes

[SEP]

I have a question - if I were to do a clean install of Windows 7, would Steam allow me to re-download my games?

yes

Awesome.

[Stig]

You can actually copy games out of the Steam folder and back in again when you reinstall.

Might be quicker if you have some big games, as it would save you re-downloading everything.

[blackoutHERO]

Can I install it without uninstalling Vista? I read something about dual booting? Anyone know how this works?

[Stig]

Can I install it without uninstalling Vista? I read something about dual booting? Anyone know how this works?

Yeah, inside Vista make another partition on one of your hard drives.

Then boot off the Windows 7 DVD (you'll have to write one) and when it asks where you want to install, make sure you pick your newly created partition.

The Windows 7 boot loader will take care of the rest, and you should be presented with a menu when you turn your PC on.

You could also google it if you want more detail, but it is quite easy!

[Peter Crisp]

Could I buy a second HDD and stick windows 7 on that and if so how would I select which drive to start as when I boot up?
I hope that made sense.

[Nook29]

Could I buy a second HDD and stick windows 7 on that and if so how would I select which drive to start as when I boot up?
I hope that made sense.

You certainly can. I think you have to go into the BIOS and change something in there.

[Stig]

Could I buy a second HDD and stick windows 7 on that and if so how would I select which drive to start as when I boot up?
I hope that made sense.

Yes (this is how I did it last time).

You just get a menu which lets you pick your OS when you boot.

[Mogster]

Out of interest, how much space would you normally need for a Windows partition? I've never bothered with it before, but I might as well next week.

[SEP]

This isn't Build 7100, is it? Because that's already leaked.