Well, that and the 4870 GPU is far faster than the 9600GSO gpu too

No, I really really doubt that would work. Physx is useless anyway why do you want it? The only game that takes advantage of Physx is Mirrors Edge, THATS IT! Not even close to being worth the 100$ of a 9800gt or any other physx compatible card for that matter.

goleafsguy

There are more titles than that (UT3 for example), but I agree its not a feature worth going out of your way for.

Also, straying from gaming now, how is the "Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD"for day-to-day use? Say I decide not to game on it, save for a few rounds of Counter-Strike, which, if mylimited knowledgeserves me right, could run on my cellphone.

Luwker

It should be pretty obvious by now that there is nothing wrong with an Intel graphics chip for day to day use. To a bunch of gamers like us though, we avoid it like the plague because they can't hold a candle to Nvidia and ATI for 3D acceleration in games.

Unless the individual cards are close in performance (in this case, they aren't), the single faster video card is always superior.

Also, for comparison's sake, the laptop I have now (Dell Latitude D610) has an ATI Mobility Radeon X300. Would the "Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD" at the very least be faster/more powerful than this one?

Luwker

Possibly, but not by much.

"Hybrid Graphics System" sounds like one of Nvidia's marketing terms to me. Still, its best to ask if you can't find specifics on it.

And if no one can answer the question to your satisfaction, don't buy it.

I have read in some reviews (on newegg) that people have been having stability issues when using the 4870 while playing games (low fps, crashing, freezing etc.). I also read that it might just be with Vista. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Twisted14

What people might blame on the video card can be caused by a whole host of other hardware (insufficient power, overclocking) or software (didn't remove previous drivers, virus/malware) issues. I have a 4850 and will vouch for it as a quality piece of hardware. Never tried folding@home and never intend to.

I gave it 40, only problem is I'm having a hard time running the CD at startup. I tried going into my BIOS and putting the CD first but still normal start up.

I don't get it.

Gamefreak1296

If you are trying to dual-boot, you will want to boot into Vista and run Windows 7 setup there. (However, when bootng off the DVD, you have to pay attention for the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." prompt).

I upgraded my work laptop from Vista to 7. The UI upgrades and major networking improvements made 7 a keeper for me.

[QUOTE="Gog"]

You need 64-bit drivers for all your hardware (not just the PC itself but all peripherals also).

topher8668

If your equipment is new or fairly new, the installation CDs may have 64-bit drivers on them, too. Otherwise, you'll pretty much have to go to the Internet to download them first. In the case of your video card, you will want to download the latest 64-bit drivers from ATI/Nvidia regardless.

If a game only uses one core anyway, a one core AMD with 2 GHz (taken from XP's System information) it should perfom almost as well as my AMD 64 X2 4800+ (2x 2.2 GHz) which plays everything satisfyingly.

wolle2000

With each new processor the architecture is improved so that more work can be accomplished with each clock cycle. An Athlon X2 is much faster than an Athlon XP at the same 2GHz clock speed. A Core 2 Duo at 2GHz is even faster.

Buy the RAM if you must, but don't bother with a new video card until there is enough money to replace the CPU/Motherboard/RAM too.