Beating the dead horse (thread) Is Vista worth it?

[tehkiwi]

I'm sure most of the responses will be a resounding "No", but why?

I was at one point the person who wanted to squeeze every bit of performance out of my machine, but has vista improved enough to make it a purchase worth considering? Is it still a sluggish resource hog? I know Astra uses the GPU and consumes a considerable amount more resources than XP does, but how bad is it?

I don't want my rig becoming a slouch by any means, but I'm turned into the average consumer. I want it work without putting too much thought or effort into it. Oh and of course: "oOOo vista's pretty!"

Is it such a serious downgrade from XP32? Also while we're talking 32 and 64-bit, if it's worth getting Vista, is it worth getting Vista64? Has the driver support improved at all? I've never owned or had to deal with a 64-bit machine much, other than server 2003 so I'm more or less a "newbie" in this realm so pardon me. Can I run 32-bit programs (office/ firefox/crysis/itunes/etc) in a 64-bit environment?


Thanks in advance guys!

[osprey4]

If you have to ask, the answer is obvious. Vista doesn't look good in any comparison with XP in any category other than eye candy.

[BipolarBill]

If you install Vista, its best to go x64. Vista needs 4GB to run snappily and the x86 version cannot use more RAM than that. The trouble is that x64 needs double what x86 does to run with same élan, so if you want top performance from 64-bit Vista, you're looking at installing 8GB of RAM.

When you consider the transitions to Vista and the hardware required for x64 in total, its pretty daunting. Like it or not, we're in one of those periods of sea change that come occasionally in PC computing. You can tackle it now or wait a while, but we have to face the music sooner or later. My bet is that Windows 7 (the next MS OS) will come in x64 only. Luckily 64-bit will allow such headroom that the next sea change shouldn't come for a long time.

By the way, x64 is not a lot more demanding CPU-wise. It's more about RAM than anything else.

[Steve R Jones]

Have you seen the other threads asking the Exact same thing?

[DeathWish187]

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

Have you seen the other threads asking the Exact same thing?

Doesn't appear so.

[BipolarBill]

I bet he has - hence the reference to beating a dead horse. He may be overwhelmed by the length of such threads and seeking a boiled-down version.

Speaking for myself, the combination of multi-core, SATA2-3, SLi, Blu-Ray, PCIe, Vista and x64 pushed me into buying a frickin' Dell and saving myself the necessity of making any sort of decision.

[Steve R Jones]

Good point Bill about the dead horse.

My Vista machines scream...Course they have faster processors then my XP machines.

[no1_vern]

Isnt that sort of cheating in Vistas' favor??

[sweeper2]

i run Vista Ultimate with only a x2 3800+ @ 2.4ghz with 2gig ram and a 8800gs 384mb vid card.. and i don't have any problems with it being slow.. I mostly have all my applications that once were (unable to use before everyone updated their drivers for Vista) running..

i don't see the need for 4 gig of ram.. unless that is what the 64bit Vista requires...

personally i don't see much of need for Vista over XP. If I had the choice, I would have stayed with XP Pro..

[outlaw2001it]

To buy Vista now would be a waste of money since XP is still supportive by MS until 2012. MS has another operating system to emerge sometime in the near future to replace Vista.