Windows 7: Release Candidate 1 Preview
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on May 5, 2009 11:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Test Setup
We selected the ASUS ENGTX260 Matrix/HTDI/896MD3 video card for GPU duties. It is a non-reference design that offers improved thermals, overclocking, and acoustics over the standard GTX 260 216 cards. We utilized the latest beta 185.81 driver from NVIDIA to ensure consistency across the operating systems. Unlike the first Vista driver releases from NVIDIA, they pretty much nailed their first full driver set for Windows 7 with all features working. We still ran into a couple of problems with dialog screens not fully completed and having to reload the driver set when running SLI. However, performance was rock solid and the compatibility/stability aspects of the driver far exceeded our expectations.
We loaded the operating systems on the superb OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD drive and utilized the WD Caviar Green 2TB for general storage purposes. This combination is something we think will become more common as SSD products make their way into the desktop market. LG’s GGC-H20L and Sony’s BDUX10S Blu-ray playback capable drives fill in for optical duties. We purchased the Corsair DDR3-1600 6GB kit that operates at DDR3-1600 7-8-7-20 on the Intel DX58SO motherboard at 1.64V. Vigor Gaming provided their Monsoon III LT CPU cooler that offers mounting kits for sockets 1366, 775, and AM2+ processors. ABS provided their Canyon 695 case and it has proved to be exemplary during testing.
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Lexington02 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
He is not late, he is claiming otherwise to the other people who think that Anandtech is MS loving while this dude is claiming to be Apple loving. I wonder, which is true... Apple lovers or Microsoft lovers...Lexington02 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
He is not late, he is claiming otherwise to the other people who think that Anandtech is MS loving while this dude is claiming to be Apple loving. I wonder, which is true... Apple lovers or Microsoft lovers...Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
From my perspective, if I'm being accused of being an Apple and a Microsoft fanboy in the same article, then I must be doing something right.;-)I'll note that I have a preference for Mac OS X if given a choice, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll talk more about that in next week's Ubuntu article.
strikeback03 - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
That was my point - I have long stated that 90% of the articles here that compare something generate comments from both sides claiming bias each way. So the anti-Apple comments were late arriving compared to the anti-MS ones.Are we really going to get a Ubuntu article? Is it now on the transition to 9.04 instead of 8.04?
Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
8.04 (because it's the LTS and most comparable to Windows/Mac OS X as such), to be followed up with 9.04.strikeback03 - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
Cool. 9.04 finally resolved some out-of-the-box compatibility problems my desktop has had with each release since I started (6.10)Gary Key - Thursday, May 7, 2009 - link
I am still a big fan of DR-DOS. Does that mean I am anti-MS also? :)MichaelD - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
This is important for me as that's what I use for an AV/AM solution. Overall, it looks very impressive, particularly for a RC; it may just get me away from XP.masterbm - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
I have been using windows 7 on my old amd socket 939 4200 4gb ram 8800gs. I started since build 7000. I started out being guy how felt that I was going to stay on vista for most of my machine I will upgrade to windows when it released. My htpc/file server at this time I plan on leaving it at vista. Due to their is no really good way to convert the .wtv format. This htpc box is automated in since it defrag it self scan it self for virus and spyware. Then It just added auto convert of the show that records. I took while to do that stuff not sure if want do every again.(also note htpc is amd 3800)The other thing I will note is that windows 7 becuase it feels snappier has made use that system more then use tofausto412 - Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - link
They need to make the defrag problem able to do more than one drive at a time...or to schedule them out.