Yes it is. Even XP will be longer supported than Vista. Vista is so to speak a "dead end"


best,


Eliot

ASUS Pics are wrong, it's not PCIe Gen 2 x1 it's PCIe Gen 2 x0.5 because Intel crippled all the Chipset with only 250GT/s.
So you don't get x2 speed, it's just x1 ...

:-)

what has the stepping to do with the temperatures the BIOS reads?
Nothing.

best,

Eliot

For everyday need even a dual-core atom with an HD chipset would be enough.
Sadly companies do mostly not offer such things.

While ITX platform is very expensive, they are selling like hot cakes. The J&W minix board had exceptional success in Asia and Zotac is selling dual-core Ion boards also with much success.

Gamers do need more powerfull machines, but not because the CPUs are so slow, but the games are programmed with C++ or C# which does take away much performance. Even high-end graphics-card can't compensate for bad programming


best,


Eliot

DDR3 has architectural improvements over DDR2 which means even at the same frequency it should offer similar if not better performance (even given its higher latencies). As DDR3 matures the latencies at 1066 should drop without the need for any increased voltage so there will still be headroom for a bit better performance has the platform ages.

Also, memory bandwidth is a function of both frequency and channels. The memory controller on the high end Nehalems is triple channel so theoretically it should be to give a 50% improvement in bandwidth over Core 2 Duo (Yeah right... not going to happen... but it should be faster).

Thoughts?

Same performance in most cases, if memory can be read linear it is faster, if it has to jump around, it's actually slower.

It's more bandwidth, but due to the fact, the third channel can't be interleaved, it does not really matter if two or three channels.

With prices skyhigh for DDR3, it's quite frankly a expensive choice without substantial benefit.

But as we know, Intel and M$ are doing much to get the industry some money, but in case of M$ it does now backfire (Vista Capable Class Action)... so both try to maximize profits, but we have the choice not to let them

As stated in my article, if you don't need the power, there is no reason to switch your system...

best,

Eliot

Pleasure to serve

best,

Eliot

I'm not sure it will really matter to many, Nvidia just doesn't seem to get the consumer the way that ATI does.

100% agree 

best,

Eliot

that was hectic

hmm

best,

Eliot

Thanks for the tips, but the real question is, why didn't MSI lower the VCore @160MHz, because there would be also more powersavings in that and why the memory is still clocked quite high...


best,

Eliot

So you think that with PCIE 2.0, a 512 wouldn't have been faster?

That depands on the game and how it does use memory. PCIe 2.0 x8 equals PCIe 1.1 x16 in speed, so the more textures you can fit in the local memory the less a game has to load them while gaming. Also it depands how much memory your computer has and if the game is a native 64bit one. While the external memory on the RV770 is still 256bit, internally ATI is still using it's 512bit ringbus system to compensate a 256bit only approach.

With more bandwidth you most of the time can save time while loading new levels, the most stuttering while gaming comes not from the graphics-card itself (except you use a crappy card) but from the OS which starts swapping when the game is using huge amounts of memory to the harddisc and vica versa. The best way to avoid that are 4GB and a native 64bit game which can access more than 2GB for sure (some 64bit games still have the 2GB restriction because the game was not modified to handle more).

More bandwith means you need more layers on the PCB because you need twice as much paths to make it work, the more layers a PCB gets the bigger the chance to screw up and failure of the PCB in the production process.
At a price-point of €129,-/USD 179,- for a HD4850 there is no room for such screw-ups.

best,

Eliot

Never saw such a useless video... of course we have all cooled nitrogen beside the PC...
But I guess there are enough stupid people to believe such nonsense

best,

Eliot.

I have a Seasonic S12 600w psu will it be good enough for an HD4870X2 ?

depands on the rest...
Te HD4870X2 is about a 300W power beast. The question is, has it enough juice to drive that


best,

Eliot.

The only thing we really hate about all ATI hardware is the fact that fan rotates insanely fast when you boot a machine. We hate this, as the machine is incredibly noisy and this gets very annoying in the evenings. Does the cooler fan really need to rotate at the highest speed at startup?

Most Nvidia Cards do that too. Also Most Mainboards with Fan Control spin up the Connected Fans during Boot-time. This is something that originated from server Hardware. Spinning the Fans up to full speed every once in a while keeps the dust out of the Case and out of the Fins of Coolers. Makes a lot of sense.

on the hd4850 they do not, at least with all the BIOS versions I tried


best,

Eliot.

Thanks. Any idea on when might season 11 be starting?

Later,

they have
season 11 is now running, today with episode 4 ...

best,

Eliot

thanks from all of us for your kind words...

we have lots to do, so we have not always time to answer in the forums as quickly as we should... and sometimes we earn the right to get lazy


best,


Eliot.