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• Various ills plague my testing as I was attempting to review a work in progress in many regards. The operating system might be ready to ship to software and hardware vendors but that does not mean all of the bugs have been worked out. Speaking with the hardware driver teams at Nvidia and AMD (formerly ATI), both companies stated that it is not difficult to build drivers for the new platform. However, both companies acknowledged that there are challenges to developing them. "You fix certain things, you optimize them and then you break other things," Guennadi Riguer, an AMD ISV engineer, said. The platform has a hard form but the small pieces change and new working driver builds are developed daily. I utilized the same hardware platform for my comparative tests. The only variables were the different operating systems and the hardware drivers. As you will see, there are still plenty of things to work out before launch day. One interesting issue I uncovered involved Nvidia's driver. Here is what I saw even though Vista "allegedly" installed Nvidia's English driver. While I followed standard procedure to install Nvidia's driver, Vista wanted no part in it. The driver page should have indicated Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX and not with the (Microsoft Corp.-WDDM) trailer. After several attempts I was able to get Windows Vista to accept the driver. While testing I noticed terrible performance in OpenGL applications even though Nvidia supplied an OpenGL ICD in the Forceware 97.46 build. I encountered some issues recording with Fraps in OpenGL so I reverted to using a separate capture card for the video. As you can see, the OpenGL driver was not being utilized and I sought help rectifying the situation. Apparently I uncovered an issue with the English version of Forceware 97.46. The conclusion was that the Windows Vista installer was causing problems during installation. I had to use the international driver version for my tests. This cleared the problem and I was able to do the tests. You will notice from the test setup chart below that I used the Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX and not the GeForce 8800GTX. This is due to the driver situation. There currently isn't a public driver for the 8000 series cards and I used what the rest of the world can download today. This is a comparison of Vista to XP. The cards tested are irrelevant as they stay the same between the tests. Test Setup System Hardware Processor(s) Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93 GHz, 1,066 MHz FSB, 32 kB + 32 kB L1 , 4 MB L2 Platform eVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR, LGA 775 Nvidia nForce 680i SLI, BIOS version 2.053.57 RAM Corsair CM2X1024-9136C5D 2x 1024 MB DDR2 @ 800 MHz (CL5-5-5-15) Hard Drive Western Digital Raptor, WD1500ADFD 150 GB, 10,000 rpm, 16 MB cache, SATA150 Networking On-Board nForce4 Gigabit Ethernet Graphics Cards ATI Radeon X1950XTX 512 MB GDDR4 650 MHz Core 1,000 MHz Memory (2.00 GHz DDR) Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX 512 MB GDDR3 675 MHz Core 820 MHz Memory (1.64 GHz DDR) Power Supply PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1,000W CPU Cooler Zalman CNPS9700 LED System Software & Drivers OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2 Microsoft Windows Vista RTM - Ultimate DirectX Version Windows XP - 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) Windows Vista-Ultimate - 10 Graphics Driver(s) ATI - Catalyst 8.31.100.3.2.1 Vista 32 RTM Nvidia - Forceware 97.46 International

• System Hardware Processor(s) Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93 GHz, 1,066 MHz FSB, 32kB+32kB L1 , 4 MB L2 Platform EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR, LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Intel D975XBX, LGA 775 Intel 975X Express Chipset RAM Corsair CM2X1024-9136C5D 2x 1024 MB DDR2 @ 800 MHz (CL5-5-5-15) Hard Drive Western Digital Raptor, WD1500ADFD 150 GB, 10,000 rpm, 16 MB cache, SATA150 Networking nForce4 Gigabit Ethernet (Nvidia), Intel 82573E/82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller (Intel) Graphics Cards AMD / ATI Based Cards ATI Radeon X1950XTX 512 MB GDDR4 580 MHz Core 700 MHz Memory (1.40 GHz DDR) Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate 256 MB GDDR3 580 MHz Core 800 MHz Memory (1.60 GHz DDR) Nvidia Based Cards EVGA GeForce 8600GTS 256 MB GDDR3 675 MHz Core 1.45 GHz Streaming Processor 1,000 MHz Memory (2.00 GHz DDR) Sparkle GeForce 8600 GT 256 MB GDDR3 540 MHz Core 1.19 GHz Streaming Processor 700 MHz Memory (1.40 GHz DDR) EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX KO 768 MB GDDR3 626 MHz Core 1.45 GHz Streaming Processor 1,000 MHz Memory (2.00 GHz DDR) Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX 768 MB GDDR3 575 MHz Core 1.35 GHz Streaming Processor 900 MHz Memory (1.80 GHz DDR) Foxconn GeForce 8800 GTS ONOC 640 MB GDDR3 575 MHz Core 1.20 GHz Streaming Processor 900 MHz Memory (1.80 GHz DDR) XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB GDDR3 500 MHz Core 1.20 GHz Streaming Processor 800 MHz Memory (1.60 GHz DDR) BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320 MB GDDR3 550 MHz Core 1.30 GHz Streaming Processor 800 MHz Memory (1.60 GHz DDR) Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX 512 MB GDDR3 675 MHz Core 820 MHz Memory (1.64 GHz DDR) Power Supply PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1,000W CPU Cooler Zalman CNPS9700 LED System Software & Drivers OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2 DirectX Version 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) Graphics Driver(s) ATI - Catalyst 7.3 WHQL NVIDIA - Forceware 93.71 (7900 GTX) NVIDIA - Forceware 97.92 (8800 GTX & GTS) NVIDIA - Forceware 158.16 (8600 GTS & GT)

• Because AMT is built in as hardware it can still make a connection when the PC is switched off and no OS is running - or if the PC is quarantined for security. Click the image to see a larger version. Intel's Centrino Pro and vPro business systems from Intel now include Active Management Technology (AMT), a hardware subsystem that lets an IT department check or change the system configuration over the network, even if the PC isn't running. This speeds up fixing systems that have been compromised by malware, but AMT also has some specific security features to protect PCs and quarantine them if they're compromised by a virus. AMT uses a small processor built into the network card or the northbridge of the processor chipset, called the Manageability Engine; the firmware for this is stored in the same flash memory as the BIOS. It uses a dedicated area of system memory to run the firmware. AMT is disabled by default, so you'll need to turn it on for each PC; an icon in the taskbar lets you know if it's running. When it's on, a Web server running in the Manageability Engine lets you see the status of the AMT system from a browser on another PC on the same network, as well as letting you turn the AMT PC on or off. It doesn't matter if the PC has crashed, because the Manageability Engine runs in S3 standby mode. Active Management Technology uses the hardware network filters and out of band communications to detect problems and apply policy; you control the policy from the management console on another PC. Click the image to see a larger version. With management software designed to work with AMT - like Symantec's Altiris products, Lenovo's Rescue and Recovery, HP OpenView and Microsoft System Management Center - you can reboot a PC, redirect it to boot from a network image to fix problems with the local OS, change BIOS settings, restart or update anti-virus software, install Windows updates, rebuild the hard drive, and delete suspicious applications. You can also get alerts for problems, and check what hardware and software is installed. There are 32 inbound and outbound hardware filters in the network controller to monitor network traffic, and automatically quarantine PCs to block network traffic if a system is behaving as if it's spreading a virus. This functions even if the operating system isn't fully operational, so a virus can't protect itself by hanging Windows. Intel calls this a "circuit breaker", but like other AMT features, it needs management software that's written to use it. Symantec is developing a virtual security system that uses AMT to run its own embedded OS and security apps outside of Windows, where malicious software can't affect it. The vPro platform is a combination of extra hardware features in the chipset, in the flash alongside the BIOS, in the network controller plus software to control these directly. Click the image to see a larger version.