Windows XP Home to XP Pro 64 is it worth it...(for me)

[PICLARK]

I am running XP Home Edition (fully patched etc), my system specs are as listed below and I only really use the power of my PC for high end gaming (HL2, Doom III etc). I will be a day 1 adopter of Vista so this upgrade is only for 9 months or so.

My question is will I get any noticable performance gains (in gaming) by switching to XP Pro 64 or will the changes be marginal (ie not worth the hassle as Vista will be here soon...ish!).

My setup is PC is pretty simple as I don't have 1000 and 1 devices (don't even own a printer).

AMD Athlon 64 FX-53, Socket 939
ASUSTeK A8V Deluxe Mobo (AGP graphics)
4 x 512MB DDR PC3200 (333 Hz)
RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB (AGP)
DELL 2405 Widescreen Flat Panel
CREATIVE SB Audigy
XP Home Edition (fully patched)

Regards

Clarkie

 

[choknuti]

It wouldn’t bring you any noticeable gains. Actually you might take a hit due to driver support etc. Your current OS is fine (well as fine as a MS product can be) for your use unless you want to run native 64bit apps on it (As to my knowledge non of the current games are 64bit).

 

[hollett]

I would stick with home. For what you use the computer for there is no advantage to the upgrade.

I do use X64 at work but thats only due to some memory intesive programs and >4gb of memory. At home I use XP pro due to driver and software support.

 

[mpjesse]

Yeah stick w/ XP Home.

BTW, I noticed ur PC3200 RAM is running at 333mhz? Is that right? If so, it should be running at 400mhz w/ that processor and board. Go into your BIOS and "force" the memory speed to 400mhz. See if that works- if it doesn't look for a BIOS update.

Going from 333mhz to 400mhz DDR would make a noticable difference.

-mpjesse

 

[llama_man]

He is forced to use 333Mhz because he's got a a Clawhammer with 4 double-sided sticks of RAM.

Weird, my A64 3000 (Winchester I think) can be forced to go to 400MHz with 4x512Mb sticks. 8O

:trophy: All hail the cheap crummy processor!

 

[pat]

He is forced to use 333Mhz because he's got a a Clawhammer with 4 double-sided sticks of RAM.

Weird, my A64 3000 (Winchester I think) can be forced to go to 400MHz with 4x512Mb sticks. 8O

:trophy: All hail the cheap crummy processor!

yes, it could run, but lot of data corruption might happen during data transfer

 

[llama_man]

Seems to be working for me, but I should really do a memtest I guess (so far only tested with a few hours of gaming)

 

[pat]

Seems to be working for me, but I should really do a memtest I guess (so far only tested with a few hours of gaming)

if you have 2 hdd, then move a big file (3-4 gigs) from one to the other, then do a chrcksum comparison between both. I did troubleshoot such problem with a small utility I forgot the name. Or you can just zip the file (or with Winrar), move the archive, then try to extract it again.

 

[PICLARK]

Yeah I bought my FX-53 on day one, it's nearly 18 months old now. Has served me well!

 

[PICLARK]

Yeah it was a costly one, but as I ran my own company I could get the goods tax abck on it (17.5% in the UK) and I could also depreciate it (the asset) against tax over the next couple of years....so it probably cost me half the real price in total...

I also had more cash than sense back then....

Now where did I leave my solid gold monkey wrench?! 8)