which OS?

[greggustin]

so many to choose from
was thinking of Win 64
for new opteron 148 single core
and 4 mb or ram

thoughts?

 

[Sazar]

Your call.

Really does depedn on what you are looking to use your system for.

I am still not all that happy with xp-64 which is why I reverted to xp-32 (pro) for my rig.

I also don't think you need to go with 4 gb of ram for the system unless you absolutely need to use that and will configure your system to utilise all 4 gigs.

For sheer stability and compatability, I think xp-32 is the best route to go. xp-64 is a heck of a lot better than it was when it first was released so it's not a bad option, but I am partial to what I have been using for a very extended period of time.

:smoker:

 

[omg its nlm]

Agree with Sazar...

That guy is good.

 

[ming]

Probably better to wait for Vista if you want to go 64-bit on the OS.

 

[greggustin]

system will have 2 purposes
games - which require High speed acess to HD for vereification
and Video editing
(more ram - better compile)
Vista off till next year?

 

[ElementalDragon]

what Ming said. i was thinking about installing x64 as my only OS...... but one important piece of hardware that i have didn't have drivers for it from the manufacturer, and i e-mailed 'em about it, and they said they had no plans to make 64-bit drivers for it at the time..... and when said product is a $200 Canon Pixma MP500 multifunction printer/scanner/copier, you don't really wanna use standard windows ordinary printer stuffs..... that is IF x64 would even detect the Pixma.

x64 is nice other than that little quirk..... but it's just not supported enough by other hardware manufacturer's. believe that's mostly due to the fact that it's not a retail OS.

 

[Sazar]

system will have 2 purposes
games - which require High speed acess to HD for vereification
and Video editing
(more ram - better compile)
Vista off till next year?

If you want it NOW, go with XP regular, pro will work for you.

More ram? I do a lot of video editing on my system and my specs are in my sig. I use xp pro.

4 gig's is well and good but likely over-kill.

 

[greggustin]

any benefit to Opteron 200 series?

 

[Nismo83]

GO for XP Pro IMO.

Why?

1. Even though it is 32bit only but it is stable as rock at least to me.

2. Most application in the market now are not yet in to the 64bit region yet ( correct me if i'm wrong)

3. Driver/compatability problem? Unless the hardware that you are using is widely known and not some rare species.

4. 4GB is like over-kill aint it? maybe you can try 2GB but with high performance RAM with tight timings.

Have a thought about it.

 

[GEN3RIC]

I just started downloading 5308 64-bit Vista, since the 32-bit version runs slow. I am hoping I see a performance increase.

The only reason I dont use XP Pro x64 is because I know that there is still limited support for drivers, software, etc... I would like to see some software that actually takes advantage of it though...

 

[Mainframeguy]

as soon as you say Games - you have no real choice, you are limited to XP, but for games I doubt pro will give you anything you did not get with Home.

I suspect even with the heaviest Video editting 2GB is plenty by way of memory.

And the money you saved from 2GB memory? change from Opteron to a Pentium processor IMHO if video editting is your bag then they are known to outperform (not sure why, maybe the hyperthreading helps that app?)....

That's my tuppence from my little experience.

 

[GEN3RIC]

as soon as you say Games - you have no real choice, you are limited to XP, but for games I doubt pro will give you anything you did not get with Home.

I suspect even with the heaviest Video editting 2GB is plenty by way of memory.

And the money you saved from 2GB memory? change from Opteron to a Pentium processor IMHO if video editting is your bag then they are known to outperform (not sure why, maybe the hyperthreading helps that app?)....

That's my tuppence from my little experience.

When I used XP Home for online games, I had some strange issues with Punkbuster. I thought it was just some hardware anomoly but when I use XP Pro I dont get these Punkbuster. It was later resolved that there are administrative issues with XP Home. I have no idea how, why, or if they even bothered to fix it...but that could really ruin a gamers day.

 

[Trooper69]

Hi, sorry to just jump in.

Not too on top of things, thought getting XP Pro 64 was a good idea. But I'm having troubles with the AV/Internet securities (norton IS 2005) and McAfee's AV (free with Comcast) not working so I have no idea what to do....what AV software works (preferably well) with XP Pro 64?

Athlon 64 +3200; 1Gig 400mhz dual channel DDR; GA-K8NS Ultra-939 w/2,000 mzh front/side bus.

 

[kcnychief]

Hi, sorry to just jump in.

Not too on top of things, thought getting XP Pro 64 was a good idea. But I'm having troubles with the AV/Internet securities (norton IS 2005) and McAfee's AV (free with Comcast) not working so I have no idea what to do....what AV software works (preferably well) with XP Pro 64?

Athlon 64 +3200; 1 MG 400mhz dual channel DDR; GA-K8NS Ultra-939 w/2,000 mzh front/side bus.

Avast Antivirus seems to be the AV of choice for 64-bit users.

 

[kcnychief]

so many to choose from
was thinking of Win 64
for new opteron 148 single core
and 4 mb or ram

thoughts?

Assuming you mean 4GB of RAM, the only TRUE way to have access to all 4GB is to run a 64-bit operating system, which would point you to Windows XP 64-bit.

Windows XP Pro/Home has issues with allocating physical address space for devices. Windows XP, being a 32-bit OS, only has 4GB of memory space. Hardware devices will take I/O address resources from this 4GB. For example, the 3.75GB-4GB (256MB) memory space is reserved for I/O APIC and BIOS EPROM; 3.5GB-3.75GB is reserved for configuration-space memory-mapping access for PCI Express; 3.25GB-3.5GB is reserved for PCI bridge devices such as the IDE Controller, USB devices, and onboard audio. When you have a PCI Express graphics card with 256MB of RAM, 3GB-3.25GB will be allocated to the first PCI Express graphic card. A second PCI-E card would take another 256MB in the 2.7GB-3GB range.

You could play with drivers and try to enable the physical address extension, but that could cause some drivers to fail.

EDIT: Also, future OS'es like Vista should correct this problem, but your wait will be awhile as it was pushed back to early 2007. Rumors are speculating it won't be the final delay either

 

[greggustin]

Assuming you mean 4GB of RAM, the only TRUE way to have access to all 4GB is to run a 64-bit operating system, which would point you to Windows XP 64-bit.

Windows XP Pro/Home has issues with allocating physical address space for devices. Windows XP, being a 32-bit OS, only has 4GB of memory space. Hardware devices will take I/O address resources from this 4GB. For example, the 3.75GB-4GB (256MB) memory space is reserved for I/O APIC and BIOS EPROM; 3.5GB-3.75GB is reserved for configuration-space memory-mapping access for PCI Express; 3.25GB-3.5GB is reserved for PCI bridge devices such as the IDE Controller, USB devices, and onboard audio. When you have a PCI Express graphics card with 256MB of RAM, 3GB-3.25GB will be allocated to the first PCI Express graphic card. A second PCI-E card would take another 256MB in the 2.7GB-3GB range.

You could play with drivers and try to enable the physical address extension, but that could cause some drivers to fail.

EDIT: Also, future OS'es like Vista should correct this problem, but your wait will be awhile as it was pushed back to early 2007. Rumors are speculating it won't be the final delay either

thanks for details - sounds interesting
but curious?
why - when I had 2.5Gb installed - Win reported 2.5Gb installed?
and not reduced as with 4Gb????

 

[madmatt]

"Windows XP Pro/Home has issues with allocating physical address space for devices."