Driver Upgrade

NVidia has released a new driver package!

Drivers for x64 vista have been spotty to date but this update to nTune seemed to go a long way in providing me with decent system stats. It is also the only way we'll be able to OC the 8800.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.38.00.html

Also, new 8800 drivers were released on May 2nd!

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_158.18.html

The install process is easier. I can now play texas hold 'em with out that nasty flicker. Stay away from the DreamScene content though, it apparenly causes major issues.

**Note** I would highly recommend running all of the control panels as administrator, they seem to crash when they are not.

4x4 in the news

Some great news from Toms Hardware and TG Daily. Apparently AMD is showing off new boards and chipsets (something on my wish list):

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/31991/118/

Apparently our new motherboard platform will be called Wahoo.

And the 4 core processor? It's apparently 45nm and was demoed this week as well! It will be called "Agena".

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/31977/135/

Pretty exciting stuff!

News about R600 has been a little disappointing. Apparently AMD is releasing a model that is between the 8800 GTS and GTX but about the same price as the GTS. I believe the model is the 2900 XT. The monster card is the 2900 XTX which is supposed to be shipping around the same time as the board and processor parts.

It seems the ATI community is pretty happy about their drivers - encouraging. Hopefully ATI is doing the right thing and not developing their driver codebase on the fly.

Here is some info on the 2900's performance:

2900 XT Benchmarks