Anandtech has a excellent article about different types of virtualization and the processor support. You will need some technical knowledge to be able to read it, however. The different types of xeons from 2005 till now have different features helping virtualization, which are shown in a benchmark....

If you are going to use more VM's simultaneously a LOT of memory and a lot of cores will really help improve the performance. I haven't got a lot of experience with VMWare and virtualization, but they say that for every virtual core you will assign to a VM, you need 1 real cpu core as well. Assignin...

All cheap raid cards, like the highpoint raids, and motherboard raid, are using the cpu to do the "thinking work". Those raid controllers don't have their own memory and aren't intelligent at all. Seen from that perspective the raid on your motherboard will perform more or less similar, performance ...

ATA controllers can not multi task. The controller waits for every call to the device to complete before it starts a new one. When your cd/dvd drive is busy, it will block the harddisk. If you almost never use your drive, it is almost never an issue. The more you use your cd/dvd drive, the more it w...

Can't you get a new cpu on your existing motherboard? The P965 chipset supports a lot of modern cpu's. The msi website has a cpu support information page. I hope I got your motherboard right this page is showing your cpu options, intel E8500 is still possible. This page is giving all options. I woul...

The 5V - 12V Volt rail question here is no issue here. Generally speaking: the Intel Pentium III and before uses the 5V rail for the main power to drive the cpu.
Pentium IV and up, and AMD Athlon and up are using the 12V rail.

I used adhesive tape once, stuck to the case, and used staples to secure the foam to the adhesive tape. It wasn't perfect, but good enough.

note: as English isn't my native language, I hope I translated staples correctly.

You can always try the fan of your choice, they aren't that expensive. If it fails after 2 years, you just buy another one

A long, long time ago I used Girder from proximis to control my windows with a remote control from an old tv-card, which did only work on the card's software itself. By using this software I could completely specify which buttons should activate which commands. Maybe you can get some inspiration the...

I would advice not to get vista business, but to get home premium. Home Premium has media center etc. built for htpc usage. Business is completely stripped of anything media, and targeted at office usage.

Tapestreamers are meant for backing up large amounts of data on shelves, but can be quite costly.

Thanks guys... From what I understand, some mobos allow the IO devices to be re-mapped to an area above the 4gb line, therefore leaving more available for Windows. I have an Intel DP35DP mobo but have not benn unable to ascertain whether this has memory remapping or not, although I will keep lookin...

I read an article from seagate once about this topic. They claimed hard disks where no good as backup. Of course I can't find that article again

Windows 32 bit has 4gb address space. All memory mapped IO is also mapped in this address space, at the top of it. Almost all hardware uses memory mapped IO. Your vga card has more memory, so it needs more address space, so there is less address space for your ram. There are two things you can do ab...

I can at least answer some questions: 1. bios: If there is an bios update, make sure it is from your manufacturer and for your specific model , type and version. Usually there are no bios updates for vga cards available. 2. If you got it from the nv. website, it is probably the newest. Sometimes bet...

Don't forget to look at laptop 1.5" and 2.5" laptop harddisks, they can run pretty quiet also and have a lot more diskspace.

oh okay. What's the long story? One part of the long story: Vista monitors which system and program files are used the most. If there is free ram, vista loads those files in the "free ram". This ram is then displayed as "free", but in reality it isn't. As soon as the computer is "idle" and there is...

In an old machine which is running for more than 5 years I do have 2 papst fan's 80mm. One in the psu and one as case fan. If you ask me they run like they are new.

Take a good look at the used drivers for your system. Update all the drivers, those for the chipset from intel and ATI, check your onboard perhipials, like jmicron controllers and disable them in the bios if you don't use them. Everything which isn't enabled should not give troubles. IRQ not less or...

I thought that it had more to do with the encoder software than the surrounding container software like virtualdub.
Xvid is multithreaded, so using xivd should do the trick. Also a lot of mpeg2 codecs are threaded so those should be OK too.

Doing some basic math: 1440x900=1296000 pixels * 32bit colordepth / 8 (8bit=1byte) 5184000 bytes -> 5mb. So all vga cards having 8mb ram should be able to get windows xp going in the perfect world. In real life you also need decent vga drivers etc. to get it going. Any ati / nvidia card like the gef...

I thought the retail version was 32 and 64 bit, and the OEM version was the one or the other, depending on the choice you make.

64bit is more and more used on new high-end systems. Almost all systems with 4gb ram are using 64bit operating systems. As well linux as vista.

EAX only works in Windows XP. M$ has changed vista in such a way EAX can't be used anymore, because it isn't there anymore. MS has rewritten and redesigned the entire audio stack of vista. Now the only thing which is there is OpenAL. To get sound from games which do use EAX, you need "Creative ALche...

As you are from Holland, you know the Tweakers pricewatch ?
For those who don't: It is a part of a dutch website listing all prices from all shops, along with the user experiences from those shops.

rpsgc wrote:No love for the X-Fi I see... not even for the X-Fi Platinum? That I/O unit sure would come in handy

What about: "We love the hardware, but hate the software"

Which software do you want to run on your htpc and what do you want to do with your htpc?

Windows MCE (xp / vista) is very picky about the supported tv-tuner cards. make sure it is supported if you want to use it.

Creative has a bad driver department. They will find a way do dis-satisfy you every time, at least they dissatisfied me for years. No linux support, no or crappy vista support for 1 year, pay for your audigy vista driver etc. They will always find a way to dissatisfy a customer. The only good thing ...

The Core2Quad Q6600 is already 2 years old, and not that fast, compared to other dual and quad cores. It also generates an awful lot of heat which is difficult to get out of a computer case, that makes it more difficult to create a silent pc. I don't know what you are intending to do with your new p...

You can't only disconnect the power. You also have to disconnect the PCI-E lanes (data lanes) from the cards, else the motherboard will recognize the cards and initialize them on power-up, and fail because the cards don't have enough power, and damage themselves. PCI-E can deliver up to 75 Watts, if...