London Stock Exchange hit with technical glitch
The heart of the UK's financial system stopped working today, as a technical glitch halted the trading of shares of the London Stock Exchange.
Computer problems were to blame for the share-trading blackout, which had echoes of last September when the LSE was struck with its worst-ever system failure.
Ongoing technical difficulties
The FTSE 100 index was frozen at 5,264.97 when trading was stopped at 10:38am. Luckily trading resumed again at 14:05pm, but shares had slumped by 1.9 per cent.
The official statement for the cause of the trading halt is as follows: "Due to ongoing technical difficulties, the Exchange has placed all order-driven securities in to an auction call period."
If you can work out what an 'auction call period' actually is, then we applaud you for your financial nous.
If, like us you checked Encyclo.co.uk for the answer, then you will know it is "a period of time when there is no automatic execution on an order book". So there you go.
The latest update from the LSE is that "all instruments are now in continuous trading".
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iPhone Ikee worm creator gets app developer job
The 21-year-old creator of the iPhone Ikee worm, Ashley Towns, has announced through the medium of Twitter that he has been given a job with an Australian app developer.
Mogeneration, who bills itself as Australia's 'leading iPhone development company', has snapped up the hacker who developed the Ikee worm, which targeted jail-broken iPhones by changing victims' iPhone wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley.
Better coders out there
Unsurprisingly the security world isn't too happy with what's happened. Graham Cluley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos, is one expert who as spoken out about the move, saying on his blog: "There are plenty of young coders out there who would not have acted so stupidly, are just as worthy of an opportunity inside a software development company, and are actually quite likely to be better coders than Towns who made a series of blunders with his code."
Although 'Ikeex' has now made his Twitter feed private, Cluley has posted on his blog the tweet in question.
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Gary Marshall: How to beat piracy: give away Spotify Premium
Something funny's happening in Sweden. After seven years of declining music sales, people are paying for tunes again.
Physical sales aren't up much - 9%, according to the Swedish arm of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry - but digital sales have increased by a massive 80% in nine months.
The music industry reckons the rise is largely due to the implementation of new anti-file sharing laws.
We don't - and we reckon revenues are going to increase further now that Swedish ISP Telia is bundling Spotify Premium subscriptions into its internet and mobile offerings.
Despite Lord Mandelson's best efforts we don't have severe anti-piracy legislation in the UK, but we do have a massively growing market for legal digital music: the year isn't over yet, but already the BPI is claiming that 2009 is "the biggest ever year for UK singles".
The reason? iTunes, and We7, and Play.com, and Amazon, and all the other decent music sites. Together they've done more to dent illegal downloading than lawsuits ever will.
File sharing isn't fun
The truth is, file sharing's a pain in the neck and most people only do it when there isn't a good alternative.
You need to get to grips with BitTorrent and in some cases muck around with ports; you run the risk of faked, incomplete or poor quality files; your downloads might be throttled by your ISP; and you're entirely reliant on other people seeding the files you want - which is fine for popular, recent, mainstream stuff but not so good for anything else.
Compare that with services such as Spotify. We've had much more luck finding obscure tracks on Spotify than on BitTorrent, we don't need to worry about ISP throttling or whether there are enough seeders and if you go for the premium version you can take your music with you on an iPhone, on an iPod touch, on Android phones and on Symbian ones, too.
When you've got that, why would you bother with BitTorrent?
We're not the only ones who think that. Reporting on a survey from MoneySupermarket, our colleagues at T3.com note that for two out of three dodgy downloaders Spotify "has worked like a nicotine patch and encouraged illegal downloaders to kick their habit."
Like smoking, it's much easier and much cheaper to prevent people from getting the habit than it is to treat them when they're hopelessly hooked - and yet in the UK, it seems that the copyright industry prefers the latter.
According to BT and the Carphone Warehouse, it seems that implementing the proposed three-strikes system would cost at least آ£2 per connection per month - an enormous amount of money that will have little or no effect on file sharing.
Wouldn't it be smarter to subsidise Spotify?
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New Snapture for iPhone adds Twitter button
Are you a budding iPhone snapper that wants to share your pics with your Twitter mates at the flick of a finger?
If so, Snapture's latest update to its massively popular iPhone photography app is what you need.
Snapture – which you can grab right now from this iTunes link – just added in a bunch of really useful upgrades to what is already by far the best camera app for Apple's iPhone on the market.
Lighting, previewing, sharing
As well as some new lighting and other new camera features, the main additions are the ability to now share your pics immediately with no fuss or switching off apps via Facebook or Twitter.
On top of that you get a new tap-to-focus capability, improved picture previewing and a number of different colour modes (black & white, sepia, negative).
The Snapture app costs you a mere آ£1.19, which is considerably less than what you used to pay for a roll of film.
Film eh! Remember that?
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In Depth: Top 12 Christmas gifts for Mac users
It's actually pretty easy to buy presents for the Mac user in your life; generally, anything shiny made by Apple will be warmly received, and in any case most peripherals will work with a Mac these days.
Still, you might need a little inspiration, so here's our list - written by and for Mac users - of presents that we know will get just the right reaction.
1. Apple Magic Mouse
Apple's new buttonless wonder doesn't do anything especially impressive, but it puts in a solid, usable performance as a basic mouse with left-click, right-click, scroll and more gestures on its Multi-Touch surface.
2. Canon Pixma MP640
This isn't the top-of-the-line Canon MFD - a device packing a printer, scanner copier and more into a single box - but the Canon Pixma MP640 is phenomenal value. You get Wi-Fi printing, dual paper trays, duplex, CD printing and stellar print quality.
3. Creative Gigaworks T40 Series II
Traditional wisdom has it that you at least need a separate bass to get good sound from a desktop speaker system. The Creative Gigaworks T40 Series II, however, prove that wrong; audio is gutsy but defined - and the cheaper T20s acquit themselves well, too.
4. Elgato EyeTV Diversity
Elgato's range of TV tuners remains the best, and we like this dual-tuner model for Freeview broadcasts in the UK. In areas of low signal, you can boost reception, or opt for watching or recording two channels at once.
5. Imation Apollo UX
Hard disks tend to be commodity items these days, but this tiny 500GB drive - USB powered, and, In Europe, wrapped in protective rubber - really stands out. Consider LaCie's Starck-designed desktop drives as Time Machine backup targets.
6. iTunes vouchers
It seems like everyone has an iPod these days - one reason we decided not to include one on this list - and they all need feeding with high-quality music. iTunes vouchers let folks pick the tracks they like from the iTunes Store.
7. Knomo Serra Red
Laptop bags tend to be utilitarian things, but not if you pick Knomo. All its products demonstrate the attention to detail that Mac users appreciate, as this Knomo Serra Red chic trolley case exemplifies. There are more butch lines available too!
8. Kodak Zi8
The iLife suite that comes with all new Macs includes easy-to-use tools to edit movies, and a video camera such as this HD-capable model from Kodak lets you quickly, easily and cheaply capture family and friends at play.
9. M-Audio Axiom 25
In that same iLife package is GarageBand, an astonishingly capable audio application. Even of you don't think you have a musical bone in your body, a little USB MIDI controller such as this M-Audio Axiom 25 lets you tinkle out a tune.
10. Samsung ST1000
The iPhoto app in the iLife suite now includes a feature called Places that lets you pin where your photos were taken to a map. This Samsung ST1000 12 megapixel compact camera uses GPS to embed this information for you automatically.
11. Subscription to MacFormat magazine
MacFormat magazine, from the same publisher as TechRadar, is packed with useful, easy-to-understand information to help Mac users new and old get the very most from their computer. There's good reason it's the UK's biggest Mac magazine.
12. Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen and Touch Small
This little graphics tablet not only lets you draw and handwrite on your Mac - indeed, it comes bundled with some excellent software - but you can also use your fingers to interact with your Mac, as if it's a giant trackpad.
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What type of gamer are you?
Are you a performance-orientated gamer or a mastery-orientated gamer? Have you even considered what 'type' of gamer you are? Have you even got the faintest clue what we are on about?
The latest analysis of the psychological underpinnings of the different types of challenges presented in videogames throws up some interesting theories about the different drives which lead us to spend (far too much of) our time playing games.
Performers and masters
Pixel Poppers breaks it down into two distinctive types of challenges offered by different game genres: performance-orientated and mastery-orientated.
"To progress in an action game, the player has to improve, which is by no means guaranteed – but to progress in an RPG, the characters have to improve, which is inevitable.
"It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform – to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master – to improve their skill or knowledge.
"Say you take a person with a performance orientation ('Paul') and a person with a mastery orientation ('Matt'). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved.
"Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle."
Zelda isn't learning
Rather embarrassingly, many of us are all-too-quickly able to identify ourselves as 'performance-orientated', which basically means we were told how smart we were too many times as a kid.
This is extra annoying as "it is the mastery orientation that is correlated with academic and professional success, as well as self-esteem and long-term happiness."
Dammit! And we thought solving all those puzzles in Zelda through the years made us genii…
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What type of gamer are you?
Are you a performance-orientated gamer or a mastery-orientated gamer? Have you even considered what 'type' of gamer you are? Have you even got the faintest clue what we are on about?
The latest analysis of the psychological underpinnings of the different types of challenges presented in videogames throws up some interesting theories about the different drives which lead us to spend (far too much of) our time playing games.
Performers and masters
Pixel Poppers breaks it down into two distinctive types of challenges offered by different game genres: performance-orientated and mastery-orientated.
"To progress in an action game, the player has to improve, which is by no means guaranteed – but to progress in an RPG, the characters have to improve, which is inevitable.
"It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform – to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master – to improve their skill or knowledge.
"Say you take a person with a performance orientation ('Paul') and a person with a mastery orientation ('Matt'). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved.
"Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle."
Zelda isn't learning
Rather embarrassingly, many of us are all-too-quickly able to identify ourselves as 'performance-orientated', which basically means we were told how smart we were too many times as a kid.
This is extra annoying as "it is the mastery orientation that is correlated with academic and professional success, as well as self-esteem and long-term happiness."
Dammit! And we thought solving all those puzzles in Zelda through the years made us genii…
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50% of Sony TVs to be 3D Ready by 2013
Sony has revealed more about its 3D TV plans this week, with the company's Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka underlining just how important the technology is to the company's future plans.
Again re-iterating that Sony is to introduce 3D-compatible panels to the marketplace, Yoshioka announced that in the fiscal year ending March 2013 between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of TVs sold by Sony will have 3D capabilities.
Billion pound business
Yoshioka also noted that the money Sony is hoping to gain from its 3D technology is around the 1 trillion yen mark (آ£6.8 billion).
Sony first introduced its 3D tech at this year's IFA showcase in Berlin.
Although prototype, the 3D Bravia TVs on display were the first to show active-shutter 3D technology through an LCD panel.
Panasonic will be Sony's biggest rival in the 3D TV home-cinema sector. Instead of just releasing TVs, however, the company is hoping to release a whole range of 3D-related kit sometime in 2010.
Expect more information on just when the TVs will be released when the pair compete once more at CES 2010.
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Virgin Media trials copyright infringement monitoring tech
Virgin Media is to begin trials of CView, a DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) tool which will monitor P2P traffic over its broadband for any illicit activity.
Before we jump to conclusions that this is the new Phorm, it has to be noted that the technology isn't to identify copyright infringers, more to collate data about just how serious a problem the file-sharing of copyrighted material is over the Virgin Media broadband network.
Non-intrusive
"Understanding how consumer behaviour is changing will be an important requirement of Virgin Media's upcoming music offering and, should they become law, the Government's legislative proposals will also require measurement of the level of copyright infringement on ISPs' networks," said Jon James, Executive Director of Broadband at Virgin Media about the trial.
"Detica's CView technology potentially offers a non-intrusive solution which enhances our understanding of aggregate customer behaviour without identifying or storing individual customers' data."
Used by the government
Detica, the folks behind CView, are a subsidiary of BAE Systems. Its technology is currently used by the government for issues pertaining to Homeland security.
Other clients include Vodafone, 3 and BT.
Virgin Media has told the Register that 40 per cent of its network will be monitored by CView, but those that are involved "will not be warned".
Even though the technology will not be monitoring those who illegally file-share, it will be interesting to see just how much information piped through the Virgin Media broadband cables daily which is deemed to be 'illegal'.
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Review: Tannoy DC8T
The Tannoy DC8T is the middle model in the three-strong Definition range, which have very little in common with the models of the same name that were marketed in the mid-1990s.
It is essentially a cross between the other two, using the driver size of the standmount DC8 within a floorstanding two-and-a-half-way configuration like the DC10T. The other model in the DC range is the DC6T.
At آ£4,000 per pair, this is a decidedly costly loudspeaker, but it's also very substantial and beautifully built. As the name implies, 'DC' refers to the Dual concentric drive unit which covers the whole audio range, augmented by a similar size bass-only driver.
The '8' refers to the size (in inches) of both drive units, while 'T' is for Tower, an Americanism for floorstander.
Each 200mm drive unit has a 145mm doped paper cone. The Dual concentric driver combines the bass/mid cone with a 25mm horn-loaded tweeter that fires through the centre of the cone, so it's effectively a two-way full-range drive unit.
A bass-only drive unit of similar size and construction sits below the DC unit, to ensure plenty of low frequency output. Whereas the DC10T drivers had surrounds made from heavily doped fabric, the smaller units used in this DC8T use more conventional rubber surrounds.
Unlike the more costly Dimension series, the Definitions have no separate 'supertweeter', because the 25-micron titanium dome tweeter diaphragm used in this latest DC driver has a frequency response that extends to 35khz.
The tweeter horn is the latest version of Tannoy's 'tulip waveguide' and, incidentally, keeps the very delicate diaphragm well away from prying fingers.
The crossover network components have received deep-cryogenic treatment, which cools them slowly to around -190 degrees centigrade, then restores them equally slowly to room temperature.
This process is believed to relieve stresses created during manufacturing processes to create more consistent physical structures at a microscopic level. Internal wiring is silver-plated, high-purity copper.
Twin terminal pairs are fitted for bi-wiring or bi-amping, and a fifth terminal optionally allows the driver chassis to be earthed to the amplifier, reducing RF interference and enhancing dynamic range.
The beautiful enclosure is very elegantly shaped, with crisp, clean contemporary lines. The silver trim around each driver and near the base dramatically contrasts with the high-gloss black finish of our samples. Dark walnut and cherry veneer (again high-gloss finished) are also available.
The sides are strongly curved towards a much narrower back, so that reflections and internal horizontal standing waves should be well dispersed. A silver trimmed port in the rear reflex-loads the enclosure. The grille is held in place by magnets concealed beneath the front panel surface, which are invisible if the grille is not used (the preferred option, due to its rather hefty frame).
Under the pretty surfaces, the carcass is constructed from high-quality plywood, made from dense birch grown in cold regions of the world. The bracing incorporates Tannoy's Differential Material Technology (DMT) techniques to couple the driver/enclosure interface rigidly with appropriate self-damping.
A major criticism, however, concerns the floor-coupling arrangements. Floorstanders often show marginal physical stability, especially examples like these with tapering narrow backs. This is usually best countered by fitting an oversize plinth, or alternatively some form of outrigger arrangement to increase the stability footprint.
The DC8T does have a plinth, but paradoxically it's under-sized, and actually reduces the footprint. As a result, the physical stability of this speaker is severely compromised and we very much doubt if it would meet the approval of the EC's health and Safety legislature.
Sound quality
It comes as no surprise to find that the DC8T represents something of a cross between the DC8 and the DC10T. The question that needs to be asked, and answered, is whether or not the Goldilocks syndrome applies.
Does the 8T manage to combine the best features of both its range-mates, as one might hope, or does it turn out to be something quite different?
There are certainly similarities between the DC8 and the DC8T, as the in-room measurements reveal, though there are differences too.
Obviously, this floorstander's extra bass driver adds considerably to the low frequency output – if anything a little too much perhaps, especially 40-60hz, as it also has a rather dramatic effect upon the load presented to the amplifier.
The claim for 89dB sensitivity is more than comfortably met, though not that for an eight ohm load: below 500hz the impedance is mostly under six ohms and one of our pair registered a three ohm minimum at 35hz. Furthermore, weak pair matching below 60hz indicates inconsistent damping.
Although there's clearly close correspondence between the '8 and the '8T through the midrange and treble, our measurements did show minor but significant differences, which had equally important implications for the sound quality.
It is normal practice in loudspeaker design to balance the relative weights of bass and treble either side of the midband, yet despite its considerably greater bass output, it's curious to notice that the DC8T's sensitivity is actually rated 1dB less than the DC8 and careful comparison of our in-room far-field traces does indeed show that this DC8T has 1-2dB less output than the DC8 above 1Khz.
Which in turn, neatly explains why this speaker has an overall tonal balance that's just a little too laid back and dull. The combination of a somewhat heavy – albeit agile and lively – bass and some lack of output in the presence zone does tend to dominate the subjective character of this speaker.
Another key factor concerns the horn loaded tweeter, which by design restricts its dispersion to a 90 degree cone. This reduces the amount of room-reflected treble compared with the conventional direct-radiating flat baffle speakers, which results in a tighter and more precisely focused stereo image at the expense of creating 'in the room' airiness.
This keeps the soundstage securely anchored to the speakers themselves and the space in between.
The consequence of both these factors is a speaker that lacks some openness and delicacy, but nonetheless delivers music with a fine measure of authority and drive and which can be driven hard to high sound levels without a hint of complaint.
Furthermore, those larger than average 200mm main drivers deliver an obvious bonus in generating rather greater dynamic grip and tension than is normally encountered in more conventional domestic speakers.
In the final analysis, the DC8T does represent something of a cross between the DC8 and the DC10T, but under our room and system conditions it sounded a little heavy and shut in compared to the smaller model.
And while it may have less coloration than the DC10T, it also lacks much of the sheer drama and excitement of the larger model.
Related Links
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In Depth: How to make your old PC perform like new again
Not everyone wants to buy a new PC every couple of years. Just because your PC no longer sits at the cutting edge of the technological spectrum doesn't mean you need to replace it to get great performance.
Your PC is just as useful now as it was when you first purchased it and with a few handy tips and tricks, you can keep it that way for a long time – saving yourself some money in the process.
There are three broad techniques you can use to extend the life of your PC: maintenance, repairs and upgrades. The only one that doesn't cost any money is maintenance and if you follow our advice you can not only make your PC as speedy as it was when you bought it, you can even improve its performance, making a new purchase unnecessary.
Look after your PC
Maintenance is the key area to consider when it comes to giving your PC a long life. If your computer suddenly feels sluggish, that's because Windows needs reviving with a good spring clean. You could perform a full reinstall but before going down that time-consuming route, try to see if your current installation can be improved with a little care and attention.
Start by running a full security scan to remove malicious software (malware) that affects performance, threatens your privacy and can mess up your PC. Also run scans using Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware, which can find and remove threats that other tools miss.
Once your computer is free from malware, it's time to give it a thorough health check. Windows Vista (and Windows 7) has numerous tools that can help you assess the health of your PC.
All of the following utilities can be found by typing their names into the Search box on the Start menu, so you could begin by typing problem to access the Problem Reports and Solutions control panel, for example.
Every time a program crashes or Vista encounters a problem, it offers to send information to Microsoft, in case there's a solution. If there is, you're given the opportunity to fix your problem there and then. If not, a record is kept and stored here, and if a solution is found at a later date, you can access it from here. Check back regularly for new solutions to both current and old problems.
Streamline your PC
Over time, your PC starts to struggle with the load placed on it when you install new programs, but there are ways to reclaim hard drive space and system resources.
Start by going through the Programs and Features Control Panel, uninstalling programs you no longer need (or use Revo Uninstaller if you want to really cut back the flab).
Next, install CCleaner and use it to clear your hard drive of redundant files, and finally defragment your hard drive. Smart Defrag, stops your hard drive becoming fragmented in the first place.
Check reliability
Do you want a quick view of your PC's health and stability? Type reliability into the Search box to access the Reliability and Performance Monitor. Select Reliability Monitor and you can see how your PC rates over a period of time for dependability, with a score from one to 10. Any problems will be flagged.
You can also generate a report of your PC's health by typing performance into the Search box to access Performance Information and Tools. Once it's open, click Advanced Tools > Generate a system health report to flag up any problems.
Get more details about potential problems by reviewing your event logs. These can flag up issues and may be able to offer advice on fixing them. These logs are stored in the Event Viewer – type event into the Search box to access it.
Once it has launched, select a log from the Windows Log menu – start with System – and wait for a list of events to appear. Every major event is recorded in its default view, so click Filter current log and select Critical, Error and Warning before clicking OK to leave only potential problems flagged.
Click or double-click on an event to learn more about it – you'll get more information and possibly a link to more help and a solution. Make a note of error numbers and filenames if you need to research them further.
Stay up to date
Another way to keep Windows Vista and other programs ticking over correctly is to ensure they're up to date.
Automatic Updates should be switched on – click Start > All Programs > Windows Update to verify this and to see what optional updates are available, including hardware patches that can improve your PC's performance and fix bugs.
If you have other Microsoft software and hardware installed – including Microsoft Office – Windows Update and Automatic Updates can provide updates for these, too. Other programs can check for updates as well; some do this automatically, whereas others need to be prompted (look in the Help or About menu).
One of the best free programs for alerting you to updates is Update Notifier, which is small, fast and can be run from a USB flash drive.
It's always a good idea to check your hardware components now and again to make sure they're all working as they should. The Windows Vista installation disc features a memory-checking tool, which is accessible when you select the Repair option. If you don't have this, you can download the same tool from here.
Extend the life of your laptop battery
If you usually run your laptop from the mains, train yourself to run it on its battery for two to three hours every week – this helps it last longer.
You can also extend the life of your battery by being more conservative with your power requirements when it's in use; start by opening the Windows Mobility Center from Start > All Programs > Accessories and reduce power consumption through the various options on offer.
Disable wireless when it's not needed, avoid using the DVD drive when your laptop is running on batteries and disconnect all non-essential USB devices to further eke out the time between battery charges.
Get smart with your drive
Hard drives have a collection of built-in features, known collectively as SMART tools, which are designed to provide an early warning when your drive is approaching the end of its life. You can install a free tool such as HD Tune to find out about these problems even earlier, enabling you to back up your data or source a replacement hard drive well ahead of time.
If you want to keep an eye on the health of any external hard drives as well as your internal ones, try downloading HD Sentinel. A limited version of the software is available free of charge, but it gives you regular prompts about purchasing a full version.
These two programs alert you to possible physical problems with your PC, but there can be less critical issues in the form of corrupt files (caused by crashes), which hamper performance as well as stability. Get into the habit of checking your hard drive for these problems once a month.
Click Start > Computer, right-click on your hard drive and choose the Properties > Tools tab. Click the Check now button, tick both boxes and then select Start. If prompted, click Yes.
Windows Vista will then check the drive and attempt to fix any errors it finds the next time you restart your PC.
You can check other components with a series of stress tests, which highlight weak points. Passmark provides a fully functional 30-day trial of its BurnInTest tool. The full version costs US$34 if you want to keep testing your PC once the trial period has ended.
Start your PC quicker
Ever noticed how sluggish your PC's performance is when it first starts, even after the desktop has appeared? That's because too many programs are competing for system resources as they attempt to load along with Windows Vista.
You can use the free Startup Delayer program from here to help stop any unwanted programs from the startup.
First, disable any programs you don't need by unticking them, so they don't waste time and resources by starting with Windows – once you've ascertained they're not needed, select the program and click Delete to remove its start-up entry permanently.
You can also stagger the loading of other start-up programs so they don't all make a grab for system resources the moment you log on. Just right-click each program you identify in turn, then choose Edit and set a delay in minutes and seconds.
Start with a one-minute delay, then, if performance is still hampered, try delaying it further.
Trimming your list of start up programs frees up memory and reduces the time it takes Windows Vista to deliver you a usable computer, while giving your PC a good clearout and defragmenting the hard drive can also deliver more speed.
By the time you've followed all of our advice, you should have a faster, more responsive PC. What was that about having to buy a new machine again?
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3D high-definition TV trials kick off
While we poor Brits are going to have to wait till some as-yet-unannounced time in 2010 to enjoy the full benefits of 3D TV courtesy of Sky, high def 3D TV trials are about to kick off over in Korea.
None other than major Korean TV manufacturer LG predicts that the market for 3D TVs will be in excess of 30 million units by 2012.
That's a LOT of new tellies!
3D onslaught at CES
And while we start to get ready for the 3D TV onslaught that is bound to happen at CES 2010 in Vegas in January, Korea's Communications Commission (KCC) has already announced its own high-def 3D plans.
And unlike Sky's plans over here, Korea is set to deliver high-def 3D TV content via its terrestrial TV networks, in addition to various pay-TV providers.
One of those pay-TV providers being CJ HelloVision – with the company set to trial its latest HD 3D TV service in around 300 Korean households with plans to extend this to 1,000 homes by 2012.
The catch? These lucky viewers are going to need an extra set-top box, plus, most of the content will be cartoons to start with. And pricing has not even been mentioned. Yet.
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Review: Gryphon Atilla
Cheap it isn't? Gryphon's Atilla costs practically آ£7,000, for what at first sight looks like a modestly equipped 100-watt integrated amplifier.
And this is the entry-level model, which is a long, long way from the top of the company's range.
There is nothing matter-of-fact or ordinary about the Gryphon Atilla, from the vaguely threatening product name, to the opening passage in the product information, describing the integrated amplifier breed as 'the ugly ducklings' of high-end audio.
Yet, this rather extravagant claim simply doesn't hold water. It's true that a majority of the very best cost-no-object amplifiers are configured as separate pre and power amplifiers, but there is no necessary correlation between packaging and performance.
There are plenty of under-achieving component pre and power amplifiers and a surprising number of truly excellent integrateds, a category that includes exceptional machinery from Belles (the IA-01), the Plinius 9100, Unison Research Unico Primo, Sim Audio Moon, Krell FBI and the Macintosh MA6300 – and there are more where they came from.
In any case, the idea of calling such a drop-dead gorgeous object as the Atilla an ugly duckling (using the term in its other more directly pejorative sense) is more than unfair – it is nothing less than a travesty.
Looked at simply as a piece of industrial design, the Atilla is remarkable and in some ways stunning. The amplifier itself inhabits a more or less rectangular box, though it is very slim and unusually heavy for a 100-watter (that's the eight-ohm rating, it delivers 200 watts into four ohms).
It is supported at an appropriate angle by two shock-absorbing feet and a single centrally mounted solid cone. At the sides, it is propped up by two strikingly shaped diecast aluminium feet. The design of the amplifier is clearly intended to ensure good convection cooling.
Gryphon describes the Atilla amplifier as minimalist and again we think it has overstated the case, though it is a reasonably simple amplifier is some ways. There's no phono input for example, although an all singing MM/MC input is available as an optional extra. And there are no tone controls or filters.
From the back the amplifier looks reasonably conventional, with inputs for four line-level items, a tape circuit and a single-balanced mode, XLR-based input. But some of the design is clearly minimalist in intent.
When under power, the front panel shows the volume level and input status. The amplifier is configured internally as a dual mono amplifier, based around two high-current independent transformers from the prestigious Holmgren stable.
The independence of the two channels internally is intended to minimise crosstalk and the product information supplied, makes the claim that the Atilla is a no feedback amplifier, though the usual point should be made that there is almost no such thing as a true feedback-free amplifier.
That form of words usually serves to describe an amplifier with no global, overall feedback, even where local feedback around individual gain stages is used.
The Atilla was designed lock, stock and barrel in its Danish home and it has many powerful qualities. The operating firmware is upgradable, as and when the manufacturer gets around to adding new features, but the feature set already includes a programmable start-up volume level and a maximum level.
The amplifier can also be configured to provide a fixed-level output, bypassing the volume control, so that this function is supplied externally. This is for those who have a multichannel amplifier or processor and are are not willing to accept the usual compromises.
We recently heard some of Gryphon's equipment on a visit to The Audio Salon in Glasgow and were surprised by how musical this relatively unfamiliar brand proved to be – not as individual products, which there wasn't the time to explore, but as complete working systems.
In the context of a review like this, which involves a single component mixed and matched with 'foreign' equipment we had to hand, there was no opportunity to explore this element of Atilla's makeup, though at the time, we were surprised and impressed by what we heard as a very strong impression of system synergy.
In fact, we were able to test the Atilla with another Gryphon component, namely the Mikado CD player, but this is a much more costly product, almost twice as expensive as the Atilla and not really intended as a cost effective partner for this amplifier.
However a lower cost CD player is apparently in the works, so there may be an opportunity to try out this entry-level Gryphon pairing at some point in the future.
So for test purposes, the Atilla was used with the Mikado and also with some other players, including an EMM Labs XDS1 SACD player. We also had access to a Denon DCD-SA1 SACD player and various speakers, though much of the work involved Mordant-Short's Performance 6LE.
The amplifier and speakers give every indication of being a completely natural match, they speak with one voice and ditto the Mikado CD player when used with the Atilla, notwithstanding the large price disparity.
Sound quality
There was no suggestion that the other disc players were in any way lacking in system synergy when used with the Atilla, at least not directly, but nevertheless, we can only report that there is something not quite convincing about the combination, which didn't quite live up to what we had experienced back in Glasgow on three different systems.
If we were asked to name the factor responsible, it would be difficult to put a finger on what it is, but somehow the two Gryphon components do have a remarkable similarity in their responses to musical stimulae, which the Atilla doesn't quite live up to when the Denon DSD-A1 and (particularly) the EMM Labs player are used as signal sources, even though the disc players, the EMM Labs especially, clearly outperforms the Mikado in most respects when used in their best case form, as SACD players.
The Atilla has a distinctive quality of its own, but in the context of this test we were unable to completely nail down its character.
The evident synergy of the two Gryphon components tends to reinforce this suggestion. This is nevertheless, a first-rate amplifier.
Without suggesting it is as muscular as some similarly rated amplifiers, it has more than enough grunt and authority to cope with just about anything during the test period. But the Atilla is far from being defined by its power output. It just doesn't lay it on with a trowel.
It also has lightning reflexes plus a treble, which is not quite silky in the valve amplifier sense, but is clearly articulated and very finely detailed. It makes the amplifier very comfortable to listen to, even for extended periods.
The Atilla is a very special amplifier, that works well with a wide gamut of recordings, and which preserves what is so special about particular recordings. It does have voicing, which is slightly unusual and suggests that care should be taken when choosing a partnering source component.
This makes the Atilla harder than usual to sum up, but at the end we're convinced this is one of the very finest integrated amplifiers available.
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Times Square used for Google Voice experiment
Google and Motorola are celebrating Black Friday in fashion this week, with a Times Square advertisement that shows off the power of both Google Voice and the Motorola Droid handset.
In the US, Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving, is one of the biggest shopping days on the calendar and the official start to the country's Christmas shopping season.
In a bid to impress the myriad shoppers in and around Times Square, a giant sign will brandish a phone number for people to phone and shout in their desired instructions.
So, courtesy of Google Voice, if you say something like: "show me the money", a Google map will appear with the various banks in the area highlighted.
Countdown begins
The display is a temporary one and is up there to show off the power of the Motorola Droid, the new Android phone which Google obviously has a vested interest in.
To countdown to the moment Google and Moto take over Times Square, there is a microsite in place which looks like something out of a Terminator movie.
With this in mind, if you are in New York and fancy sending some info to the display, please don't mutter the word 'Resistance' or, for that matter, 'I'll be back!".
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Review: LaCie Starck 1TB Hard Drive
External hard drives can be a mundane product, but this collaboration between peripherals manufacturer LaCie and world-famous industrial designer Philippe Starck seeks to buck the trend, with a device that's as beautiful as it is functional.
The LaCie Starck features a sturdy aluminium casing with mirrored metal front and rear panels. Starck himself describes it as "a symbol of strength mastered, of freedom guided, of incandescent magma heeding to the form of its cast."
The less pretentious might compare it to a shiny pebble in a metal box. Yet it's not just for looks.
Prentention aside
The drive's build does much to keep the operating temperature down. Instead of a standard LED to indicate the drive state, Philippe Starck's signature cross symbol is projected onto your desk in front of the unit.
The front panel is touch sensitive, activating shortcuts that launch an application of your choice, open a file or folder, or trigger a custom action such as mounting or unmounting the drive, or launching LaCie's Desktop Manager software.
Intego Backup Assistant is also bundled. When you first connect the drive, a wizard guides you through a formatting procedure, giving genuinely useful advice about which file format you should choose and why. This is very useful for the less experienced computer user.
In our tests, the drive averaged random read speeds of 11.6MB/s, with random writes of 18MB/s. Sequential read and write speeds were 29MB/s and 22.2MB/s respectively.
These figures place this device at the fast end of what you'd expect from a USB 2.0 drive, but they're not extraordinary. Only USB connectivity is offered, so it can't benefit from FireWire speeds.
The Starck is inexpensive given its pedigree. It's currently just آ£77 on Amazon, which is only about آ£10 more than the site's cheapest 1TB external hard drives.
Its aesthetics may not be for everyone, but its top features, performance and build quality make it great value for money.
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Review: Apple Mac mini 2.53GHz
The Apple Mac mini has huge potential, but to date, that potential has not been realised.
It's the cheapest way to buy a Mac but it isn't powerful enough to appeal to switchers, and it's been shamefully under-exploited as a media centre.
This new release does little to change the situation, but at least it offers an incremental increase in power. We reviewed the higher end Mac mini, boasting a 2.53GHz processor and 4GB of RAM.
In our thorough benchmarking tests, Cinebench's video rendering ran 17.9% faster than a 2.0GHz Mac mini from early 2009, but iTunes encoded our test CD in 473 seconds, which is disappointing as it's almost exactly the same speed, and most new Macs manage it in under 360 seconds.
Doom 3 ran at 41.6 frames per second, which is also almost unchanged.
Same price
Thankfully, however, there's been no price increase since the previous release either. A lot of people use Mac minis as servers, so Apple has also released a new version specifically for this purpose.
The Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server is based on the high-end mini, but the optical drive has been replaced with a second hard drive. Both drives are 500GB, giving you 1TB of storage in total.
Snow Leopard Server Edition is pre-installed and the full package costs آ£799, which is very good value for money considering the server OS costs آ£399 when bought separately.
This standard Mac mini looks expensive in comparrison. Perhaps the next release of the Mac mini will bring us a Media Centre Edition, with HDMI output and an optional Blu-ray drive?
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Valve launches latest Steam clear-out sale
Valve has made us happy gamers this week, announcing its pre-Xmas clear-out sale on its Steam download service.
If you have had your eye on Dawn of War, Dragon Age or Batman for PC over the last few months, then now is the time to buy buy buy!
Steam's sale jumps the gun on what is called 'Black Friday' in the US of A, one of the busiest pre-Xmas shopping extravaganzas on planet earth.
Luckily for you, Valve has discounted a bunch of some of the best games of 2009 on Steam, which means you don't even have to leave the comfort of your gaming chair to go out and brave the hordes at your local Game or Gamestation!
Publisher Premier Packs
Price cuts on seven of the best PC games of the moment range from 25 percent to 80 percent and the sale is on until Friday 27 November at 8 AM PST, at which point a bunch of new discounts will be announced.
Valve is also offering discounted publisher packs, with the LucasArts Premier Pack or the THQ Complete Pack already up there for a mere $49.00
Want cheap games? Go here. Quick!
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MTV launching Rock Band Network soon
If you have ever fancied turning all those CDs and MP3s you have so lovingly collected and compiled over the years into an awesome game, then now is the time to celebrate, because MTV and Harmonix Games are planning on launching the awesome 'Rock Band Network' early next year.
The 'network' is effectively a service that lets you convert any music you like into music that is playable in Rock Band.
The hugely ambitious project is currently still in its 'closed beta' stage.
Convert your tunage
An MTV Games rep told Kotaku: "We're working hard to get the Rock Band Network open public beta release of tools up before the end of the year, with our RBN storefront launching in early 2010. Exact dates still TBD.
The tools for bands and fans to convert their content for review are already up at Creators.rockband.com/tools/download.
"The open beta launch will add access to the currently private website where all of the RBN community activity and peer reviewing of tracks will take place," added the MTV rep. "People who join the Rock Band Network (bands, fans or otherwise) will be able to play and preview any song before it hits the store, so they should stay tuned for the official launch."
The Rock Band Network should be launching to the public for both PS3 and Xbox 360 in early 2010.
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West End looks to wireless translations
Visitors to London's West End theatres could soon take advantage of a device that offers translations of exactly what is being said and sung.
A trial at the Shaftesbury Theatre with breakout hit Hairspray has been a success.
The musical is obviously performed in English, but language is seen as a barrier to many tourists who want to know just what's going on (and why that woman looks like a man in drag).
This was solved with Airscript, a wireless handheld screen that not only offers translations but is also helpful for the deaf.
Eight languages
Initially, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese will be offered, but that could be extended.
James Williams, of Shaftesbury Theatre, said: "A lot of work has gone into getting this simple, yet effective concept working effectively in an incredibly short timeframe and we're delighted with the response we're seeing from our audiences."
Of course, any ad libs may cause the odd problem, but it's certainly an elegant solution to an age-old problem.
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Guitar Hero founder details Natal integration
While we were fully aware that the next iteration of Guitar Hero – sure to land sometime later in 2010 – would have Project Natal integration, the founder of the massively popular gaming franchise has let slip a few more details on how this is going to work in the games.
The development team over at Neversoft are already looking into the best ways of working in camera and motion-sensing technology into their game, as was (more than heavily) hinted at in our earlier interview of Guitar Hero CEO Dan Rosensweig last month.
"There are a lot of possibilities that technologies like Natal will bring, and we're definitely exploring those," GH founder Kai Huang told The Seattle Times.
Track movements on screen
"We haven't made any specific announcements of what we're doing with new technologies in 'Guitar Hero 6' and beyond, but one of the areas we're exploring certainly is camera technology and what you can do — track your movements and maybe have your characters on the screen do certain things you're doing, or personalise it more so it can look more like you on stage rather than just be an avatar."
So there you go, both the founder of the series and the new CEO have both gone on record to state that Natal motion-sensing control WILL be integrated into the next Guitar Hero.
That sounds pretty much like a 'specific' and fairly official announcement to us… Right now, we're off to play with our Whammy Bar, while we still know what it feels like!
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YouTube getting pressure from Hulu and Facebook
YouTube is coming under increasing pressure from the likes of Hulu and even Facebook, as the video market's dominant force is finally given a run for its money.
ComScore's latest figures show major growth for Hulu – a television catch up and on-demand service that has become a huge hit, particularly in the US, and Facebook video over the pond.
YouTube's dominance is still clear, however, with the Google owned video site receiving a whopping 1 billion views a day.
British trends
The video market is still growing at a huge rate – up 7 per cent in the US, and although the UK figures are not included, the likes of the BBC iPlayer and Sky Player are major players in Britain.
Facebook's huge social networking audience gives it a clear advantage in terms of audience reach, and it will be interesting to see if the UK video market begins to see similar trends to the US.
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LinkedIn likely to go public, but not yet
LinkedIn is highly likely to go public at some point in the future, according to co-founder Reid Hoffman, but not in the near future.
Hoffman, talking to Reuters, confirmed the general belief that LinkedIn was a candidate for an initial public offering, or IPO.
The social network, which allows professionals to form links and host their accomplishment and details online, has 53 million members, and is amongst a group that includes the like of Facebook that is expected to go public when the economy picks up
"Probably at some point a balance will occur when that's the right thing. That will not occur in the near term," Hoffman said at a London event to celebrate the network's reaching 3 million users in Britain.
Financially sound
The last time that LinkedIn went through financing in 2008 it raised huge amounts of money, and it has not splashed that cash yet.
"We haven't spent a dime of our last financing," Hoffman said. "I think our numbers are good enough that we are not driven by the market."
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BARB finally gets with the 21st Century
The British Audience Research Board (BARB) has finally changed the way it puts together its familiar audience figures to reflect the huge changes in the way consumers watch television.
The old way of coming up with the ratings – which were based on a sample of people using special TV viewing equipment had come under fire for several reasons, several of which were about not dealing with the major changes in TV.
Those changes include the increased use of PVRs like Sky+ and V+, the use of PCs to view content and the rise of the games console as a media provider.
BARB-ed comment
But BARB has now responded by overhauling its methods and signing up 11,500 viewers in 5,100 homes to represent the UK population.
Bjarne Thelin, Chief Executive of BARB, said the new service will launch on 1 January 2010. He said: "Much of the new system is similar in concept to the current one, but there are important changes.
"While BARB 2010 won't be a radically different service at the outset, flexibility for the future has been created by changes in structure and methodology."
Unfortunately even with the new methods BARB will never get to to the bottom of just why Coronation Street is so darn popular.
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Opinion: Open source hardware is ready to go mainstream
Out of all the many things I detest, the worst is paying for items and still not owning them.
With the world the way it is, I have no option but to disobey the laws of economics and open my wallet for gadgets that curb my freedom to use them to their full potential, and then pay for a dressed-up upgrade every six months.
Which is why it gives me immense pleasure to report that the last bastion of exclusive hardware ownership has been breached. Open source hardware has reached its tipping point.
If the time wasn't ripe for this revolution, news of an open source camera from a university wouldn't have made it past the campus science journal. But Stanford's Frankencamera project is popping up all over the radar.
The idea is simple – take the principles of open-source software and apply them to a low-cost assimilation of off-the-shelf camera parts tied together with a Linux based OS that's available to everyone for modification.
Forget proprietary APIs and SDKs, this is the holy grail for people that spent their school breaks soldering radios.
Heading for the mass market
When (not if) this union of open hardware and software specifications trickles down to consumer-grade cameras, you'll be able to super-size your point-and-shoot to take RAW shots, or use more pre-configured modes for shooting at night, or make use of the ability to adjust the auto-timer settings and more.
Just like with open source software, you don't need to meddle with the innards of the camera: pick it off the shelf, connect to the internet, and fetch the wisdom of the community in a firmware upgrade. Or just order a supercharged modded version that'll shoot under water and has a hot shoe for attaching a custom flash.
Frankencamera isn't a lone example. The Arduino computer project started as an inexpensive prototyping system and is now accessible to electronic students worldwide thanks to dozens of clones that spawned because of Arduino's open specs.
Then there's the RepRap self-replicating open spec 3D printer that's 50 times cheaper than commercial alternatives. Hardware maker VIA has released a reference design for a netbook, MIT plans to do the same with its solar-powered car and there's even an open source graphics card under development.
So open source hardware definitely makes sense to the garage mechanic and the independent researcher. Using non-proprietary standard hardware helps them keep their costs down.
But why would traditional hardware companies want to spend money developing a new piece of hardware and then just release the specs? It's a complete reversal of their current modus operandi.
Business opportunity
They'd do it because open-source hardware actually presents a business opportunity for the hardware vendors.
Take the example of Cisco. When a licence violation forced the company to release the specs for one of its routers, sales picked up. A dozen or so third-party firmware projects mushroomed around the router and made it do things way beyond Cisco's wildest imagination.
In a similar vein, backup company BackBlaze has just taken open source hardware to another level. The company sells unlimited online storage for about آ£3. Since existing commercial storage solutions wouldn't allow it to keep its expenses in check, it decided to assemble its own 67TB 4U storage pods.
Its hard work cost it $117,000 for one petabyte (that's 1,048,576GB) storage rack. Dell retails the same amount of storage for $826,000, Sun for $1million, and EMC for over $2.8million. You do the maths.
Beat the charts
These are the kind of savings you need to beat the charts in the current cost-conscious market. So what does the company that has seemingly cracked the code do? Just like you'd expect, they show off with fancy cost comparison charts and stacks of storage units on their blog.
Then they take a leap into the future and explain in great detail how you can copy their design! They have it all – videos, specs and wiring diagrams. They even tell you how to dampen the vibration from all the disks. From a traditional business model point of view, BackBlaze has just committed commercial suicide.
But the pointy-haired nay-sayers fail to see that by letting people work from its design, BackBlaze is offloading the R&D burden on to more people than it could ever pay for on its own. That's something you can take to the management, and not have it thrown back in your face.
For these reasons, open source hardware is finally on the verge of breaking through into a store near you. Depending on how they play it, far-sighted hardware vendors will receive either a pat on their back, or a slap in their face.
What is certain, however, is that they can't afford the opportunities any longer.
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Review: ATI Radeon HD 5970
And here it is, the ATI Radeon HD 5970, the fastest graphics card in the world.
All hail its mighty rendering pathways and the gods of silicon for bringing us this technological wonder.
It's faster than any graphics card we've ever tested, it's bigger than any graphics card we've ever tested and it houses more technology than you could shake Stephen Hawking at. So why then are we feeling so utterly underwhelmed?
We had pricing issues with the original ATI Radeon HD 5870; its آ£320 price point making a mockery of AMD's previous successes with more svelte, cheaper cards than the monolithic strategy of its Nvidia rivals.
In today's market such expensive cards are less viable purchases and more tech demos.
We're not just talking about the financial climate either, in this gaming world where most titles are developed for three year-old console technology you hardly need the sort of power such cards are touting, unless you've got a couple of 30-inch panels strapped together.
The same obviously rings true for a card that's sitting dangerously close to آ£600; it feels even less like a viable consumer card and more the sort of thing to ensure competition once Nvidia's DX11 Fermi cards hit our test benches in a month or so.
We're also slightly dubious as to how many of these cards you'll actually see in the wild. Reference and manufacturer boards have been made available to us, but we still find it difficult to track down any 5800-series cards in the country. Most retailers are out of stock - the supply just isn't there.
AMD assured us that the 5970 launch is coinciding with a ramping up of its 40nm production which should mean thousands of chips being produced every day.
Whether it will produce enough to cover demand for both 58xx series cards and the 5970 we'll have to wait and see.
But that's all by the by if the beast performs like the beast we're told it is.
Things didn't start off too well for the 5970 as we put it through its paces in the only DX11 game we've currently got running; DiRT 2.
It was hitting 40fps with absolutely everything up as high as it could go, at 2,560 x 1,600 with 4x anti-aliasing, which is no mean feat.
Not bad, but then slotting in the little brother Radeon 5870 at the same exact settings and, while the framerate did indeed drop, it wasn't what we expecting. The 5870's performance dropped by only 0.2fps.
Then, after loading up Resident Evil 5's benchmark, things got even worse. Not in performance terms, oh no, we couldn't actually get far enough into the benchmark without it crashing the system to get a full test in.
Poor driver support
Now it has to be said these issues are probably not down to the silicon, indeed our other benchmarks bear out the 5970 as the fastest graphics card in the world.
What it does show is, for all the tightening up of drivers on AMD's behalf, it's still tough to trust a multi-GPU setup, especially on the latest gaming titles.
The Nvidia-centric Resi 5 can be forgiven, but DiRT 2 is fully AMD'd up as a DX11 title and that's tougher to excuse.
Later drivers will shore up the problems we've found, but you can't help feel the spectre of multi-GPU cards past looming over your shoulder as you try to boot up a new game.
For your آ£570 you may well be getting the fastest card in the world, but you might also be buying yourself a two week wait after a new title comes out before your multi-GPU beast will have drivers that can cope with it.
But, like we said, the benchmarks we did get out of it support the fact that it's the fastest graphics card in the world (we're sorry, that's the last time we'll say that, we promise).
Against the 5870, the current fastest single-GPU card in the world (c'mon, that's a slightly different phrase...) it gets between a 50-55 per cent speed boost which is quite impressive.
AMD is also touting the 5970 as the overclocker's card, claiming it has some ridiculous headroom for tweaking its nuts off.
Overclocking potention
Now our experience of GPU overclocking has had variable results in the past, but the 5970 really does have a lot to give.
In order to keep the peak wattage below 300W AMD limited the card to a 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors, with the PCI-e bus included that amounts to 300W available to the card. With a decent PSU though we can crank that up closer to the 400W mark that the reference cooler has been designed to handle.
On the PCB there are two extra pins available to turn the 6-pin into an 8-pin socket but AMD is saying that we won't see cards with twin 8-pin connectors before Q2 2010. So we'd guess that's when we'll see the proper overclocked versions hit. Just in time to give Nvidia's Fermi cards a little scare then maybe...
All this means then is that if you get hold of a third-party tweaking tool like RivaTuner or MSI's own Afterburner then you can bump up the GPU voltage and unlock a whole world of core and memory speed headroom.
With some fairly low-level tweaking we managed to get well over 900MHz on the core and 1.2GHz on the memory side. This gave us an 80 per cent boost over the 5870 on Far Cry 2 and a massive 93 per cent increase in our DX11 Heaven benchmark.
That said you will have to put up with a noisy ol' reference fan and one hot-as-hell card roaring away inside your machine.
Our experience with the overclocked 4870x2 though still leaves us curious as to whether the increased heat and power will quickly cook the card like it did with its multi-GPU predecessor.
Massive numbers
When you're getting performance results like that then the 5970 becomes more of an appealing prospect. Once the clocks get above the 5870's stock settings then you can really see the value (and we hesitate to use that word) in this multi-GPU setup, and why it's seen as more than just a 5870x2.
But should you buy one? Well, if powering a couple of 30-inch high-res gaming screens is what you're after, and money has never been an object, then you could maybe consider the purchase.
Hell, you may even be able to hire your own personal coder to develop private drivers when it fails to run a new game...
For the rest of us though it's a step too far. The original 5870 is a pricey beast, with the more reasonable 5850 a better bet for DX11 gaming, so the 5970 is just the GPU equivalent of a آ£1,000 CPU. Great if you never had to ask about the price, but not so much better as to make it a must.
We only tested the 5970's performance at the very highest levels available - after all this is the high-end card de jour.
Hence 2,560 x 1,600 all the way. The DiRT 2 results and lack of a Resi 5 bench show up the typical multi-GPU driver issue, but the rest of the results, on stock settings, show how far ahead the 5970 is.
When overclocked it blows the 5870 out of the water.
DX11 Performance
DiRT 2 - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 40
HD 5870 - 40
STALKER: Call of Pripyat - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 34
HD 5870 - 22
Unigine Heaven - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 30
HD 5870 - 18
DX10 performance
World in Conflict - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 58
HD 5870 - 39
Far Cry 2 - FPS: higher is better
HD 5970 - 71
HD 5870 - 46
This review was written in conjunction with:
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