I am considering getting one - don't know much about it. What's the best OS for it? would it be totally foolish to run XP 32-bit on it? I mean, is there a HUGE difference from 64-bit or a moderate one? Also, I have been running XP 32 since its inception basically, and rely on many apps thereof - am I going to have compatibility issues with those apps and 64? Thanks in advance.

 

Windows 7. No. No. No. Run Windows 7 with the XP mode VM.

 

oh geez.. i smell a can o worms...

think ill do windows 7 and see how it goes, and if I have trouble with my apps Ill try XP on a different hard drive....

 

There are definitely compatibility issues between 64 and 32 bit. If you're really concerned, I'd stick with XP 32 bit to ensure no issues. Very few programs take full advantage of the 64 bit processing.

I went with Vista 64 on my Corei7, and there are some older programs and little shell utilities that just don't work and that I've learned to live without.

 

here is what I do know. I have run XP 32 on a regular Quad-core 2.66 machine before and all my apps were blazing fast (Photoshop, panorama-stitching, things like that) - compared to my C2D 2.0 laptop I would say the Quad was about 10x faster. At least that's what it felt like. If I ran XP 32 on the i7 would there be a similar performance increase compared to the older Quad in terms of the benchmarks? I would guess, yes. And, even if I'm not running the optimal software setup to maximize its performance, I would still be happy if the apps ran faster than an older Quad, while at the same time preserving compatibility.

 

We had HP printer driver nightmares at work for Vista x64. I'm pretty sure I even posted about it here.

FWIW Photoshop CS4 is one of the few applications coded to specifically take advantage of a 64-bit OS (Windows only BTW). From the couple of tests I saw though, it looks like you need to be working with some really large files before the 64-bit advantage becomes noticeable. Like a 20+ MP image with 10+ layers sort of thing.

I'm waiting until the actual retail release date for Windows 7 is announced before I order parts for my next machine. That's primarily just because I know what a lazy SOB I am and that I'll hate wiping a machine just to go from the 7 RC code to the gold code. Even that's a year from now. I'll just wait an build the new machine when the retail code is available.

 

64 bit drops support for 16 bit code so any programs in 16bit won't work. but if you run windows 7 x64 (or x32) with the XP mode you'll gain back that compatibility but allowing you to run XP apps side by side with Win 7 apps or you can choose to run them in a virtual machine.

I don't think any consumer apps are written in 16 bit code and haven't for years but there might be some obscure business or niche market apps from some small company that still are.

Only real improvement over 32bit is the ability to address more than 4gb of RAM which is almost the norm nowadays. There might also be a slight performance improvement since the CPU can access RAM in 64 bit chunks instead of 32 bit. Om nom nom nom

 

if you want tell me what apps they are and I'll see if I can run them in XP mode, MS is saying that Windows 7 with XP mode has an almost 100% compatibilty with all Windows apps so you should have no problem with it.

 

oooh.. XP mode... me likes.

 

https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...&postcount=592

 

hmm.. just some older apps I have that I like.. there are newer versions available but they have become bloated to all hell and the older ones do what I need them to do... those are the basic gists of compatibility issues I may face..

 

nice.

ALTHOUGH... I would not want to run my audio programs which simultaneously use a myriad of plugins and such in an emulated mode..

 

well try it out, it's requires virtualization support from the processor (which i7 has) and it's runs at just about bare metal speeds. Virtualization is much better and more efficient that it was years ago. Many business now run their servers in Virtualization instead of one OS for each physical server they're now running many OSes on the same machine at the same time and it's seems to be working fine. I'm pretty sure if it works for them it'll even meet your high requirements

Try it for yourself

Win7 RC download
https://www.microsoft.com/windows/wi.../download.aspx

XPmode downloads
https://www.microsoft.com/windows/vi.../download.aspx

 

Audio programs are where I've had most of the compatibility issues -- DirectX filters that don't work, and the exposure of the audio subsystem to applications (like Adobe Audition) is mysteriously simplified down to a simple stereo configuration even though I have a 7.1 capable sound system on my motherboard.

If you're doing a lot of sound processing, definitely stick with XP. My $.02.

 

I recently built an i7 system, and went with 32-bit XP.

 

Yeah I feel like I remember reading somewhere about audio issues with 64bit - guess I will be sticking with XP.

how's that working out for you? any oddities? quirks? things you have to work around?

 

Works perfectly fine. It's a stop-gap until Windows 7 comes out. It's a free engineering copy I got from my brother, so I can install it on as many computer as I want. The only oddity is it doesn't see all of the 6gb of RAM that I have, but that's with all 32-bit OSs.

 

cool deal. I was planning to only get 3 or 4gb for now anyways. what do you see, 3.5gb or something right?

 

Right clicking on My Computer shows 3 Gb.