Hello richb93
Well before we digress completely lets remember this thread was created by citizenx13 to find out if the Intel® Core™ i5 "processor" would work fine and dandy alongside Windows XP . . . We have no idea what his mate does with the PC? . .
anyway to thrash out a few points which may or may no be relevant to the O.P . . .
What's the point of buying a new computer with a DX10/11 capable graphics card if you can't use these features
If somebody has been running Windows XP with an Athlon XP and 512MB of DDR400 then they will be blown away by the processor performance of the Intel® Core™ i5 running under Windows XP . . .
These DirectX® 10/11 features you speak of are not really anything special . . . the hardware will still peform very well rendering DirectX® 9.0c titles . . nothing really is being "wasted" . . .
Some newer games (such as Just Cause 2) don't even run on XP anymore.
Good to know . . . although one game does not the world make and it certainly does not much to help someone "Justify" spending money to upgrade their O/S . . .
As far as I know 4GB is the total amount of addressable RAM including devices such as graphics cards. If you buy a graphics card with 2GB RAM then you're system is limited to 2GB of usable RAM which is slow for games
That’s fine . . . I'm not sure who here has specified buying a GPU featuring 2GB of vRam? . . . or are you saying the O.P's mate should buy Windows 7 and more memory in case he wants a GPU with 2GB of vRam? . . .
The biggest incentive for me was that being the latest version it's just less hassle.
That's fine, the main reason you bought Windows 7 was because it was "less hassle" . . . . I can't say anything about Windows XP is a "hassle" for me personally? . . .
Windows XP is not slow?
It supports the latest hardware
Windows XP also supports the latest hardware? . . . the only function I can think of that is missing is perhaps TRIM support for SSDs? . . .
and has the most driver support as it's arguably the widest used OS.
I'm not sure where you are getting your facts from? . . . feel free to share them with us please?
It's designed specifically for newer computers and is designed to exploit the latest hardware
This is basically second hand marketing guff . . . if your happy with the O/S I'm happy for you . . . if you want someone else to spend out good money on the O/S like you then please find your good reasons to convince them! . . .
I'm sure these reasons are why others have bought it too, besides it being provided with new computers
Basing a purchasing decision on what other people do is flawed reasoning . . . and has no bearing on anything . . .
It's almost a decade old operating system!!
that’s like saying the Sun is billions of years old its rubbish!
We're talking about computers here, where technology moves quickly
The principle is the same, to say Windows XP is almost a "decade old" has no bearing on why someone should upgrade, it works, it does what its meant to do . . . just like the Sun!
What you should be doing is finding good "reasons" to convince someone to part with £80-£100 on Windows 7 and highlight the Real-World benefits it would bring them . . . . saying "Well everyone else is upgrading and the other O/S is old" is flawed reasoning . . .
You may think "technology moves quickly" but actually its plodding along . . .I've been watching it closely for 15 years and really nothing exciting has happened in ages . . . I would say technology is more "slowly but surely" . . .
A sizable amount of steam players use either the family PC or have a low end machine that really isn't that great (Check the steam forums for 'Will my old PC run X?' threads). They use XP because their system is older came with XP and was designed for it. Sure Windows 7 will run on it but what is the point of buying it for an old machine?
I don't believe this is "fact" . . . this is "assumption" and "conjecture" on your behalf . . . Windows XP works fine, yes its years old, yes it doesn't support a single game and a single hardware feature but this is not compelling reason to upgrade . . .
XP has it's place, but not on newer computers imo.
Your welcome to your opinion . . but as we know an option is nothing more than a persons interpretation of "facts" . . .
Windows XP is working very well here, I have a newer computer and the older O/S has its place on it!
I just feel that if you're buying a new computer then you'd might as well just buy a new OS for it as well, otherwise it's a bit like <insert car analogy here> !