Good Idea? Bad Idea?

[jagnet]

Hello all,

So as I stand in Futureshop and look at the various versions of Windows Vista, I wonder should I or shouldn't I... with all the bad press it's gotten over the last couple of years it seems hard to come up with a valid reason to buy it.. but after thinking for a bit (and the fact that I have some money to "toss away", lol) I decided to pick up a copy. So I left the store with a full retail copy of Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit edition.

Now, my question to you fine people is this: Should I wipe my drive which currently has Windows XP PRO SP3 (obviously 32 bit) and all available updates (I know the whole "If it meets your needs don't change it" argument so I don't need to hear that) and start fresh with this Retail copy of Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1) 64 bit?

Yes my rig currently does everything I need it to do and it does it well. However, with the changing times and the current and future games that are out/coming out I would like to use DirectX 10/10.1/11 and get the most out of my Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 Single Slot video card... and obviously with Win XP only able to go to DirectX 9.0c that's not gonna happen if I stay in the present state.

I've been researching 64 bit computing alot lately and DirectX 10 and it seems like it would be a good move but I guess what I'd really like to know is whether or not we've reached the point were 64 bit is the way to go or if I should wait a little longer and perhaps go with Windows 7 when it debuts...

So I guess this thread is directed at all you 64 bit OS users mostly... but as always, any input is welcome.

Rig Outlined:

Asus M2N-E mobo
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ EE 2.8GHZ 65nm 65W
2GB Crucial DDR2 667MHZ RAM (Upgrading this in the very near future to DDR2 800MHZ
Corsair HX 520W Modular PSU
Seagate SATA2 160GB HDD (Getting another HD also in very near Future)
LG 20X DVD Burner with Lightscribe
Codegen Standard ATX Gaming Case

*All at stock settings right now*

Thanks in advance.

-Jagnet

 

[notherdude]

You will not be disappointed with Vista 64. Support and stability and frame rates . . all good now. Trust me, there is nothing fundamentally broken or buggy about Vista. That is a pernicious myth that has lived for far too long thanks to Apple ads and valley centric MS hating bloggers and tech writers. Vista runs like hot butter on a good, new, system with 2 or more gig of RAM.
Old hardware is hit and miss. As a rule dual core CPUs and two or more gig of RAM are reccomended.

Windows 7 (I have the pre-beta BTW) will very likely be a more elegant and functional version of Vista - it is the Vista core - but it will be at least a little better. How much better? My guess is not much really. But since Vista is pretty close to great it doesn't need to be a lot better, a few improvements are all it needs.

Since you have an OS that 'meets your needs' you would be buying Vista for the heck of it, so to speak, my advice would be to decide how much fun playing around with 64 bit and DX 10 might be. I had no need to move from XP either but I was just tired of it and longed for something new. I have been very pleased. As an amateur PC expert I like to stay on top of the new stuff too.

Time marches on. It is true that seven will be out in latter aprt of 09 probably, about a year. But then again you might want to wait for SP1 of 7 so that would have you running Vista for about two years.

OH yea, wipe or dual boot? Dual boot first. Just make a new partition to put Vista on and it will save the XP install automatically. Later, if you are happy with Vista, You can merge them and delete XP, or put 7 on it. LOL

 

[jagnet]

Thanks alot notherdude, you've helped me put it into perspective! I'll definitely be putting Vista 64 bit on my rig.

Just curious, is there any way for me to get ahold of the pre-beta of WIN7? Just to test it out.. No big deal if there's not, just wondering.

 

[jagnet]

btw I did install a copy of vista home premium 32 bit the other day on my rig and it scored overall 5.3 on windows user rating or whatever that thing is, scores were 5.3, 5.9, 5.9. 5.9, 5.7 so I think I'll enjoy Vista 64 bit. I am going to buy another 2 GB of ram and another HDD too. I like the idea of actually being able to use all 4GB of ram alot! Wether or not a prog/game actually uses all 4GB it's still nice to know it can.

 

[pat mcgroin]

One other thought .
You said you had a little extra money, but yourself a new HDD and boot through the bios if you able to either system you want.
If not put the new drive as primary and install vista and it will see the XP setup on the secondary and give you the option for both.

 

[jagnet]

Thanks for the suggestion but I really have no interest in dual booting. To install Vista is to "move on". Dual booting is a useless waste of time to me.
Plus I don't mind reformatting drives if the need arises.

-Jagnet