AMD was hoping that both cards in its new HD 5800 series line-up would be shipped and released on the same day, but due to unknown complications it appears as though only now has the ATI Radeon HD 5850 been shipped and reviewed. Unlike the bigger brother HD 5870, the HD 5850 will ship at a cheaper price of US$259 (compared to US$379 for the HD 5870). The card is also shorter in PCB length, packs fewer stream processors and has a decreased clock and memory speeds.

Both cards are still powered by the same, DirectX 11 allowing chip and the cheaper HD 5850 still has many features of its big brother such as ATI’s Eyefinity technology. That said, the card is still very, very good for its price. The card comes very close in performance to Nvidia’s GTX 285, and in some cases (such as Crysis), managed to beat the US$299 card by a small margin. Hit up this link to see a full review for card which is truly bang-for-your-buck.

Microsoft has finally decided to move its free anti-virus software out of the beta stage and into general availability. Microsoft Security Essentials is designed to be a basic, free anti-virus for those who don’t want to pay for a better quality AV such as Symantec, Kaspersky or (my favourite) ESET NOD32. Microsoft also assures us that it wont bother us with notifications, rather it will “run quietly in the background.”

Security Essentials will also update of its own accord, meaning you don’t have to do anything to keep your AV up to date. While we still recommend a more powerful anti-virus such as the ones mentioned above, you can still go ahead and download this free version from Microsoft’s website, and it’s guaranteed to run on XP, Vista and 7

Microsoft has finally decided that OEMs and ODMs can install whatever version of Windows 7 they like on their netbooks, including Windows 7 Starter which won’t have the three applications restriction any more, as they removed it after consumer complaints. I expect that most OEMs will still install the cheaper Starter edition, even though it lacks some of the features of the other versions such as Aero Glass, Media Center and DVD playback.

However, if they feel that their “netbook” can handle some of the features of the other versions such as Home Premium or Business, they can install it. Or if you would like Ultimate on your underpowered netbook, feel free to install it (and have your system choke). Finally Microsoft has come to their senses.

According to the guys over at Fudzilla, Nvidia’s new DirectX 11 card, the GT300, will be coming out this November. They have got word that the new card has been taped-out (the circuit design has been sent for manufacture), which plants the release date somewhere close to Black Friday; November 27 – the date Nvidia was aiming for.

Of course if things go wrong Nvidia can probably still launch the card before Christmas, maybe sometime early December, and still have the card available this year. Good news for all those waiting for the new Nvidia card (like myself) to see how it stacks up against ATI’s new HD 5800 series cards, instead of buying the ATI card now while they’re in the spotlight. Soon the battle of the graphics cards will be back on.

Summary: The reasonable purchase price and good range of presets for portable devices lead me to recommend the program to people who need “one-click” conversion to watch movies on portable devices. The presets are only available on the platinum edition.

I give the program an 8/10.

You can read my full review in the reviews section. Until the 31st of September, readers of The PC Report can get WinX Platinum for free (usually US$25). You can get it here.

P2P technology and its flagship, The Pirate Bay have become a symbol for free and open information exchange. On the other hand, it’s also reducing earnings for the filmmakers, software developers and musicians who create the content that is being freely transferred on P2P networks.

It’s an amazing statistic that nearly 50% of all internet traffic is from peer to peer networks, mostly using bittorrent. A substantial proportion of P2P traffic is tracked by The Pirate Bay, and as I write this The Pirate Bay has over 15 million peers connected to 1.5 million torrents.

If you’ve been following the story, The Pirate Bay has been having a rocky legal ride this year, and they have already passed the deadline to become legal. The proposed sale to Global Gaming Factory looks unlikely to go through due to financing problems, and the future of The Pirate Bay in its current state is uncertain.

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AppleInsider, the usual source for all sorts of Mac related rumours, has come out with a new rumour about the iMac line-up. They are claiming that Apple has finalised some new iMacs up to the stage where they have been rolling of the Taiwanese production lines for a couple of weeks now.

The new Macs are rumoured to be thinner, looking more like it’s range of LED Cinema Displays, and (finally, thank God) cheaper for us to buy. Also on the list of new features could be a previously rumoured Blu-ray drive, as well as some sort of audio enhancement to make the new iMacs the “most versatile ever.” No word on a release date for these or any other sort of details – it’s all rumours for now

You may have been following the story of the Apple Tablet. Well, not to be outdone, Microsoft have released information about a prototype tablet/booklet, called the “Courier“. It has two screens, around seven inches each. The concepts Microsoft introduce in the video below are exciting, you can “flick stuff from screen to screen, and do all sorts of other fancy tricks”, in Gizmodo’s words.

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The most powerful 15-inch laptop just got a bit more powerful: it’s now packing one of the new Core i7 mobile processors on the inside. The Alienware M15x now has the fastest mobile processor available, the 2 GHz Intel Core i7 920XM, inside it’s massive 4kg, 4.8cm thick shell. Accompanying this CPU is a 1GB Nvidia GTX 260M, up to 8GB DDR3, a Blu-ray drive and your choice of either a 500GB hard drive or 256GB solid state drive

Of course, Alienware is known for some ridiculous pricing (the M17x costs around US$5,800 for the best configuration), and by using Dell’s online customizer, the M15x starts at US$1,499 and goes all the way up to US$4,599 for the best configuration. I still think that a gaming desktop is better value than a gaming laptop, but go ahead and buy this if you like powerful laptop hardware.

The first update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is now available, and fixes compatibility with several programs such as Alcohol 52%, Trend Micro Internet Security and Windows Live Photo Gallery. You can grab the update from Windows Update or via the Windows Download Center.

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