Hey C!

As far as the installed programs are considered, you'll have to re-install them. Games too. But, you can easily save all your (well probably over 99%) data and game saves& some preferences.

Every time I do a reinstall (did well over couple hundred at my old job) I simply copy the user folder. In Win 7 it's in C:\Users\(your username). Copy the whole folder with all the hidden files. This will include the AppData folder that houses over 90% of your application preferences. You would also be advised to copy the "Public" folder under "Users" too (C:\Users\Public), because some of the settings & prefs are stored here.

Now, for restoring this, you simply copy the two folders back after the fresh installation of windows, accepting to overwrite all files & merge all folders and when few files notification that can't be overwritten, just click cancel. Keep in mind that if you use the same username when you do a fresh install as is your current username you can just overwrite the whole folder, but if you've changed the user name, you'll need to turn on the option to show hidden files & folders and then copy the content of the folder to the new one.

C:\Users structure is universal to both 32 & 64 bit OS, so no worries about that.

Now, best practice for backing up files is making double sure you don't loose anything. I did this in my ex company by making a backup image of the whole machine by using a 3rd party software (we used "Acronis Backup & Recovery" boot image & external USB HDD's) and then the procedure I described above. That way, you can install fresh OS and copy the files back, and if anything goes awry you can fully restore your machine to previous state with Acronis.

Now, about the Acronis- There are surely many 3rd pary backup tools, but I loved Acronis boot image and learned to trust it, because it makes a snapshot of the whole machine (all the drivers, programs, settings, files- everything) that if needed is restored to a completely the same state before you did anything to your machine (software wise). This does exclude hardware changes, though. Acronis image can still recover all your files, but if you changed the hardware in the meantime you cannot restore the full image.

I hope I helped. Feel free to contact me if you need any further advice.

Cheers mate!

M.

L.A Noire IS coming to PC, that's why it's on his list.DanielDust

hmm ok. Thanks for everyones input so far. If I was to buy a single GPU as an upgrade to my 5870 then, what would be recommended? I don't want to go to the extreme £500 price, but I do want a noticable upgrade. Happy with either ATI or NVidea

_Matt_

Actually, no other single GPU will make a noticeable difference compared to 5870 (well maybe GTX580)...

You can stick to your card, or you can go all out and go for dual GPU. The only difference with single GPU card could be to switch to nVidia card, and that will only be apparent in games that support nVidia Physx... In which case GTX570 would parry 5870, and more expensive GTX580 would beat 5870 (not drastically, but noticeably).

Let's face it, 5870 is one helluva card!

[QUOTE="sieg6529"]Looking forward to Skyrim as well...since nobody knows exactly how hardware intensive it is, I would buy yourself just one 6870 and see how far that takes you. Crossfire is overrated IMHO, and only makes sense once the price for the 2nd card has dropped. Also, no, you can only crossfire within the same 58XX or 68XX family, and the slower one is the limiting factor, so it wouldn't make sense even if you could. _Matt_

well thing is benchmarks seem to show that the 6870 is on par if not slightly less powerful than the 5870, so surely getting a single 6870 would be a downgrade to an extent?

hey man, yeah thanks, I think it is sorted now, the dust on the GPU was insane! one of the clips fell off at the back which allowed dust to build up. Thanks againcouly