On The Horizon (And Beyond) Computer Technology:

[wtsinnc]

Some interesting stuff from Computer World via msn.com

http://tech.msn.com/products/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=12391140&GT1=40000

[yoda313]

When AMD purchased graphics card maker ATI, most industry observers assumed that the combined company would start working on a CPU-GPU fusion. That work is farther along than you may think.

So what if you wanted to upgrade to the latest graphics system you'd have to get a whole new CPU???? That's crazy. Although these days graphics cards are more expensive than your average cpu. But imagine having to swap out your cpu to get the next version of directx??? Also it talked about LAPTOPS. Seriously how many extreme gamers use LAPTOPS to play games?? They use high end pcs like ALIENWARE to kick up the frame rates.

I do like the sound of 32 core processors And it mentioned 100's of cores would eventually be possible BRING IT ON!

Anyone have specs on what WINDOWS 7 will require to run efficiently? Would a dual core be sufficient or since it might not be out till 2010 is a quad core more likely? Also will WINFS be forced on you and reformat the harddrive of a ntfs drive?

Thanks for the link wtsinnc

[wtsinnc]

Hi yoda313;

Maybe this will be helpful.

http://activewin.com/reviews/previews/windows7/

[yoda313]

Thanks wtsinnc. This actually seems more modest than I thought - at least for the prebeta version:

The requirements for a successful installation include a 1 GHz Intel Pentium III or compatible processor or better, 1 GB or more RAM, 10 GBs free disk space, an SVGA Plug and Play monitor, keyboard, mouse, a DVD Drive, network adapter

That's not very demanding at all.....

It didn't seem to mention winfs at all. Maybe that hasn't been implemented in the prebeta yet?

Also - if you wanted to be part of a beta test how does it work? Can you do it like a LIVE CD from LINUX without installing on the harddrive? Or would you do a partition and dualboot? I've never done a beta testing but might be intrigued by WINDOWS 7 to test it out. Would a dual boot scenario be the best to preserve your existing harddrive? FYI I'm running VISTA PREMIUM 32bit on the machine I'd likely test on.....

[wtsinnc]

yoda313;

Me again. Try this link for info about beta testing.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/resources/respec/betatest.mspx

[yoda313]

Thanks wtsinnc. I'll check it out. (I do realize the beta for 7 is not out just yet but sounds like it won't be very long before it is).

EDIT -

Woah $700 for a operating system subscription???? No way!

Do they offer free beta downloads during the trial period? I'm sure they'd want to get honest evaluations from the computer enthusiasts who don't want to throw that kind of money around.... Yikes...

[stiltman]

From what I've heard, WinFS will come to the OS's after it comes to SQL and Exchange.

[RabidDog]

WinFS is the only new thing they should have incorporated in win7 ergo its been left out for the foreseeable future. Unleash the Dogs of free source, on a new Filing system. It might happen IF Microsoft buys SUN...hmmmmm.... and gets some real programmers, instead of the quiche eating, hare shirted, Jscript wielding Namby Pambys they have, writing code at the moment. They'd run a mile at the sight of assembler code, and have to get their Nappys changed. Real programmers don't need a Monitor, a small hexadecimal display is just fine.