OS advice on new build

[cotswoldcs]

I'm planning on replacing my aged P4 Northwood in my next financial year (1st April) and am planning on building a "future-proof" quad core monster. By then I'm hoping that X38/X48 motherboards will be cheaper and DDR3 prices might be more affordable.

My concern lies with a choice of OS. At the moment I'm very happy with XP and having tried Vista I can't say I've been very impressed. However if I go for a 64 bit machine and use the latest hardware am I being foolish not to go for Vista 64 HP/Ultimate? Obviously I could dual boot but to me XP is nippier and much like an old jumper whilst it may not be the best choice I'm more comfortable using it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts...

[staffsMike]

64bit vista running on a decent machine is pretty good tbh. I don't like the way vista has changed everything round but it seems to run nicely enough with most things getting pretty good driver support.

Personally I wouldn't run it just with vista, I would dual boot with xp.

I wouldn't waste your money on DDR3 or X-48 if it's £200+.

[hermeticist]

I don`t think by the 1st April prices will have dropped sufficiently to make DDR3 financially viable, with its modest speed difference. With the introduction of X48, you may get a bargain on X38 - I think if you look at the prices of X48 `boards you`ll see that they are currently priced above X38 (£200+), which possibly indicates that X38 is not being replaced by X48, but supplemented. Although P45 prices may be higher (almost certainly at launch) than P35 & these may fill the £110-£170 category (currently filled by X38).

If you want the fastest performance, XP 64bit is probably your best bet (if you must use windows - I [hang my head in shame] do).

[dangel]

Go for Vista 64 - it's absolutely fine on modern hardware and there's nothing future-proof about XP. Vista 64's driver support is much much much better than XP 64 because MS enforce it (and XP 64 is actually Windows Server 2003 in reality).

On a quad core with plenty of memory i find Vista feels much quicker.

[Bounty_Bam]

Im in the same boat here.. just build new build, Q6600...8800GT....4GB...etc

I like some of the new stuff on vista.. the skin, Flip 3D, the side bar... but I have all that on XP, so my XP looks exactly like vista. But Ive heard sooo many bad things about vista, I mean yeah its been out for about 18 months now so surely MS have resolved many problems (driver wise etc) but the main fault ive read numerous reports on is its compatability with many many games.

I just dont know whether to stick with XP, as I know it inside out, used it for many years, find it fast... or going onto vista, despite what Ive heard.

Either way I need a 64-bit OS now, for my RAM...

[directhex]

remember: xp64 is not xp

[Blitzen]

I don`t think by the 1st April prices will have dropped sufficiently to make DDR3 financially viable, with its modest speed difference. With the introduction of X48, you may get a bargain on X38 - I think if you look at the prices of X48 `boards you`ll see that they are currently priced above X38 (£200+), which possibly indicates that X38 is not being replaced by X48, but supplemented. Although P45 prices may be higher (almost certainly at launch) than P35 & these may fill the £110-£170 category (currently filled by X38).

If you want the fastest performance, XP 64bit is probably your best bet (if you must use windows - I [hang my head in shame] do).

Im sorry but thats not correct.
XP 64Bit is the worst supported OS the Microsoft has made.
Vista 64Bit however is now great and works beautifully if the time is taken to set it up correctly.

Im in the same boat here.. just build new build, Q6600...8800GT....4GB...etc

I like some of the new stuff on vista.. the skin, Flip 3D, the side bar... but I have all that on XP, so my XP looks exactly like vista. But Ive heard sooo many bad things about vista, I mean yeah its been out for about 18 months now so surely MS have resolved many problems (driver wise etc) but the main fault ive read numerous reports on is its compatability with many many games.

I just dont know whether to stick with XP, as I know it inside out, used it for many years, find it fast... or going onto vista, despite what Ive heard.

Either way I need a 64-bit OS now, for my RAM...

I have been running Vista Ultimate 64Bit since the day of launch on MSDN in November 2006.
Initially, for the first 3 months or so, it was absolutely shocking.
Drivers were also non existent.

Since then Vista has been great and i would never go back to XP.

Also, the games all run fantastic.

[peterb]

Im sorry but thats not correct.
XP 64Bit is the worst supported OS the Microsoft has made.

Sorry Blitzen - I have to contradict you on that statement - the title of worst supported has to go to Windows ME (although there is some debate about whether it was an operating system or just a collection of random code thrown together)

[directhex]

Sorry Blitzen - I have to contradict you on that statement - the title of worst supported has to go to Windows ME (although there is some debate about whether it was an operating system or just a collection of random code thrown together)

drivers were made for ME, in that ME would use 98 drivers fine

the same cannot be said about xp64

so in the sense of third party support, xp64 WAS worse supported

[Blitzen]

Sorry Blitzen - I have to contradict you on that statement - the title of worst supported has to go to Windows ME (although there is some debate about whether it was an operating system or just a collection of random code thrown together)

Contradict back at you

The drivers for ME were all but the same as Win98.

The XP64bit drivers, well the very few that were made, were totally different.

[d032sh]

It's also worth bearing in mind that there is no upgrade path from xp x64 to any vistas. I remember finding it amusing that the vista upgrade adviser which was released before vista didn't even run on xp64. I've had a number of annoying driver problems with xp x64 and am now a bit annoyed with myself that I didn't take the plunge and put vista on a few months ago when xp64 screwed itself up completely and I had to reformat.

[Minimos]

I was having the same dilemma with my new build, but 64 bit it is for me, decided to ditch the safety blanket and embrace what will be the future.

I don't want to be forking out again when 64bit apps become the mainstream in the next few years