New Build: Xp over Vista

rancid-a

rancid-a

rancid-a

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Hey guys :)
I opted for the 'Ultima Edge Core i7' build on this site and have been customising it to look like the following..

Coolermaster HAF 932 case
Intel Core i7 940
OcUK Expert Overclocking
Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 mobo
3GB Triple Channel DDR3
2x Nvidia GeForce GTX 280s
VelociRaptor 10000RPM 150GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 500GB
Corsair HX 1000W PSU

I'm really not keen on Vista (after my last buy) and am wondering if an XP system will be okay with the i7 chip & x58 motherboard? I was under the impression that they require loads of DDR3 Ram and I know XP can only use just over 3Gb. PC to be used for gaming (far Cry 2 etc and Photoshop/photography)

Thanks for any advice :)
 
XP (and Vista) 32Bit will see a little over 3Gb of ram. I have 4Gb in a XP x86 system and it sees 3.25Gb. If you want more then 64Bit XP or Vista is the only way.

As for XP being OK on the i7 and x58, I couldn't comment.
 
Hi rancid-a, with the system you have listed, if you install a 32-bit operating system then the system will only be able to address around 2.7GB because you are using two Nvidia Geforce GTX 280 graphics cards. I would highly advise purchasing a 64-bit operating system weather that is Windows XP or Windows Vista.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of problems did you experience or what didn't you like about Windows Vista?
 
Hey guys :)

Fire Wizard, I don't mind you asking :) I know lots of you people love Vista, but my first experience of it totally freaked me out. I'm terrified of getting another computer like that one. Main problem - only problem actually, was exploring DVDs containing small files (15-30 seconds wait, hanging even-cold start). My PC vendor blamed Vista and said it was a well known fact that Vista was slow at copying files. I got a refund & said it wasn't fit for what I wanted it for.

I'd really love Vista64 with 6gb or 12Gb ram even, but as I said, I'd be absolutely heartbroken if I ended up with another like that one. A few people have said disabling 'Windows Search/Indexing' would help with the looking at files on DVD and others have said try to get IDE DVD drives rather than SATA, I don't know if either suggestion would work, I'm pretty much noob when it comes to hardware really and my PC went back before I could try out that advice. One of my friends even implied it was my fault for going overkill with two powerful GFX cards & 8Gb of DDR3. I'm just not sure what do do.

Thanks for your help everyone, really apprechiated :)
 
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Fire Wizard said:
I would highly advise purchasing a 64-bit operating system weather that is Windows XP or Windows Vista.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of problems did you experience or what didn't you like about Windows Vista?
Click to expand...

does xp 64 see more memory then?
________
CH250
 
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( |-| |2 ][ $;13127642 said:
Wasn't that fixed under SP1?
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Yes, and it only applied to copying files over the network anyway . . . In a handful of cases (apparently!). The DVD drives is a limitation of SATA it seems. I tried an IDE drive under vista and it was much quicker opening files than the sata one.

Yes, 64-bit XP sees more memory (same as 64-bit vista).

Incidently hyperst - Check out the FAQ regarding the sig sizes . . otherwise it will be deleted and litttle Yellow text put under instead . . . . 4 lines max.
 
I recently just took the jump from xp to vista, as I tried it pre-sp1 and didn't like it at all but sp1 has fixed the major flaws and also I would recommend if you want to get as close as possible to a xp experience with vista benifits is to use vlite and strip out all the crap :)

Also from my experience xp64 is even worse performance wise than xp32.

Also I read here about ide vs sata cdrom drive, I have never actually noticed before but earlier I was installing cod4 on my htpc and noticed it took so much longer than another system of mine and they are both pretty close in specifications, only main difference being the motherboard and the htpc has a sata dvdrw.
 
ShaolinDreams Of course I'll post piccies in the relevent section, when I finally get a PC :)

That PC I sent back came with SP1.

Bobbydigital Installing CoD:WaW took around 30 mins on that Vista PC but it was probably due to the size of the game, they're getting bigger & bigger :)
 
Well it was modern warfare I was installing again, but yeah they both seem to take ages to install, but I'm just guessing its down to my htpc having a pretty cheap asrock board and the other rig an asus.
 
A 32-bit OS can see 4GB of memory in total. That includes the system RAM and the memory on the graphics card(s). You've got 2GB of graphics memory on those cards, so I'd only expect about 2GB of your system RAM to be usable.

I'd say Vista x64 is the best option. XP64 is OK but the main problem with it is driver support, since it's not a commonly-used OS.
 
I used Vista 64 when it first came out and hated it, was a real displeasure to use and I reinstalled XP and was happy.

When I upgraded my machine I tried Vista 64 again, SP1 was out and a whole host of tweaks were easily accessible on the net, and now I love it! Runs stable, fast and have had no problems at all with it.
 
VaderDSL said:
I used Vista 64 when it first came out and hated it, was a real displeasure to use and I reinstalled XP and was happy.

When I upgraded my machine I tried Vista 64 again, SP1 was out and a whole host of tweaks were easily accessible on the net, and now I love it! Runs stable, fast and have had no problems at all with it.
Click to expand...

Exactly my experience; I even tried XP 64bit and that was a bad move. Vista 64bit works very well now so don't worry about it.
 
Vista 64 is the way to go with that spec machine. It's had enough fixes and tweaks that it now works and as has been said has far more driver support than XP64.

Oh, I used to hate Vista and so that's saying something that I am now willing to recommend it! :)
 
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