This week should prove to be yet another busy week for me with bit-tech. There are some very important decisions that are being discussed at the moment. While I can’t go in to detail, they will change things quite dramatically. Over the last week, I spent good amount of time with Wil. We spent a long time talking through things together, which enabled us to really start to understand just how important bit-tech is to so many people. Don’t worry, we’re not closing the doors just yet. 
Now, moving on to the coming week, there are several cool articles coming out on bit-tech. I have had a second look at the most-impressive Radeon X800 XL - I still can’t believe how cheap this video card is - a real GeForce 6800 GT killer. If you follow the surveys that take place on the Steam network, you will see that the GeForce 6800 GT is the most widely-used video card from this generation with close to 20,000 users reporting that in their video card driver description. The Radeon X800 XL is looking to take some of the market away from NVIDIA, and this is good news for you guys, as we’re likely to see the GeForce 6800 GT drop down in price to compete.
Interestingly, there are more X800 XT Platinum Editions than GeForce 6800 Ultra’s… Hmmm, remember not long ago when everyone was slating ATI for the ‘Phantom Edition’? To me, both IHV’s struggled to keep up with the demand, despite what either vendor claimed. It’s going to take some time for anything to topple the superb Radeon 9800 series - it dominates proceedings by quite a margin.
Monday should see me looking at some low-end cards (fun!), with one of them being a first for bit-tech - we’ve never reviewed an XGI card before, so it should be pretty interesting. Computer Trade Show takes place at the NEC, Birmingham on Tuesday and Wednesday, so Wil and I will be down there to have a look around. While the show isn’t the most exciting in terms of new kit, it’s a great place to establish good contacts and relationships with distributors, vendors and etailers. The Tuesday night always ends up as a rather late one, with just about anyone who is anyone in the UK tech industry present in the bar. It was my first press outing for bit-tech last year - I made some good contacts and some great friends in the industry. It will be good to meet up with them again for another session in the bar.
Thursday and Friday will probably be the recovery path. That may not happen though, as I’ve got a mates birthday on Thursday evening - I can’t really miss it either, as it’s her 18th. Having said that, it should be quite a fun night. Most nights are in Loughborough and it’s a rare occurance when there’s a night without something to talk about afterwards. I’ll no doubt be nursing a hangover on Friday, but I’ll just have to work around that as an occupational hazard - there are things that I need to get finished before my queue of kit gets out of control.
There’s also tidbits of SLI still to investigate, that’s taking a bit of a back seat at the moment though, as I’m waiting for new drivers from NVIDIA - they shouldn’t be too far away though. Here’s hoping that they’ll be available to me by the end of the coming week, as I hate having things sitting half done.