Which OS?

[TX-Thunderbolt]

I'm building a new core i7 rig right now (see other thread) and have waffled on a couple items. My OS choice is hard right now for a number of reasons. I'd love to stay with XP for the short term as it's so solid but my version is 32 bit. I'd really like to be able to utilize all the RAM I'm putting in it (though I understand it's more dependant on the programming of the game to use it). Windows7 is what I'd ultimately like to use based on all the information I've heard/read but that's not due until maybe October?

Here's what I'm looking at. Please inject your thoughts.

WinXP Pro is solid but only 32 bit.

Vista just seems so buggy still..but I've never used it so can't speak from personal experience.

What about XP 64bit?

The sad part is, whatever I use will likely only be for a few months so I'd hate to spend much cash on an "interim" OS. I have an enterprise version of 32 bit XP Pro still so that's cost-free. Anything else I'd have to buy. I like what Gunny did and was really thinking about going with the same thing (Vista HP 64bit builder's version).

Please make some sense out of this for me.

[TX-EcoDragon]

I'd pass on XP 64 from what I've heard. . .if you already have XP that you can use, perhaps stick with that until you can get 7, or get the 7 beta and use that for the short term.

I would have a hard time buying Vista right now, with WIndows 7 so soon to be released.

[TX-Gunslinger]

I sure do like my Vista 64 - which came with Service Pack 1.

I don't see what other reasonable choice you have, other than to install an older copy of XP for a few months.

I'd also recommend finding out (maybe Eco knows) just how hard that release date is for Win 7. 

If it is truely coming soon, then why not live with XP for a few months then buy it and "SHABANG" it will be like you had a second new computer!

If you don't have your hands on applications that you know will use the threading/multi-core capability (like BS but I'm thinking more of Rise of Flight) - then seems like to me that you could use your old copy of XP until Win 7.

That's if you have an old copy of XP that you can transport to your new system.

If you have to buy something anyway, (I could be dense here) then buy the "bare bones" version of  Vista 64.  I have not found anything I could not run yet.

Hoped this helped,

S~

Gunny

[TX-Thunderbolt]

Thanks for the replies. I was leaning towards the same thing you got Gunny, but given the "apparent" nearing of Win7 release (maybe another 6 months) I could just put my whole rig together and even though XP will only recognize 3.2GB of my RAM it shouldn't cause any problem having it in there. Then Win7 will "unlock" the remaining resources when I get that installed.

I have an enterprise edition of XP Pro that I got from my employer and as a department manager am allowed to use it on my personal machines without issue. So, I can simply use that again for the next few months as a cost-free solution.

I really wanted to get up to speed with 64 bit and use all my RAM right away, but there's really not a program that I use that will utilize all of it yet anyway.

I'll use the money I've saved on my OS to get a couple more HDD's and will likely go with a RAID 0+1 setup. Speed AND redundancy = teh good. 

[TX-EcoDragon]

I think you'll be just fine using XP for now. . .I really wanted to see all 4 gigs of RAM in use on my machine, but other than for certain apps like Adobe Premiere, photoshop, and similar rendering and modelling software, there isn't any gain to be seen.

Other than in BlackShark, XP runs most sims faster on 2 gigs than Vista/7 does on 4. . .the decresase in fps isn't enough to care about, but my point is that you aren't going to see some big gains in anything I know of other than BlackShark (and in the case of Black Shark the gains have nothing to do with the added RAM).

If you haven't already, you can see how XP compares to 7 in FSX, BlackShark, and IL-2 by goign here: http://www.txsquadron.com/forum/index.php?topic=2675.0