XP PRO or vista......32bit or 64 bit

Art Scott

Getting really close to getting a new PC and looks like I will be going for a core 2 duo instead of a quad after a lot of research.....so here is my conundrum ........ I have really gotten used to XP PRO (hated it a first ..... so different from my 98SE) but have finally gotten used to it....... so is it going to be really advantageous to go to vista now or should I stick with XP PRO until photoshop is no longer able to run on it........I will have to spring for a new OS on this box as it is set up for all SATA drives and my current horde of PATA drives will have to move over to external enclosures as back up drives.....and since I do not have a hard copy of XP PRO I cannot seem to migrate it over to the new box.....not so bad since I have seen some of the big elecronics companies offering XP PRO for around $100 (32 bit or 64 bit)........

WIll I gain anything by going 64 bit over 32 bit (besides headaches of course)??

Thanx in advance..........:bow:bow:bow:bow

LiquidAir

The primary advantage of 64 bit is that it lets you use more than about 3GB of memory. If you put 4GB of memory in the box about 1GB will be mapped out by a 32bit OS to make room for the PCI bus and other devices.

As for Vista vs. XP, that's a harder call. If you think you will be upgrading to Vista a some point, it is probably best to get it out of the way up front. I wouldn't install 64 bit XP because most of the 64 bit bug fixes and drivers will be targeted at Vista, but if you think you can live with 32 bit XP for the life of the machine it might make sense.

Tango

i dont claim to know anything...but, i just went with a 64bit vista and sata drives on my new purchase and i noticed...

(though im not sure its one or the other or just both...)

when i have 300 images in a folder and open it in bridge the thumbs are there very fast compared to my old set-up and that was worth it to me..

hard part was getting all the 64bit drivers for everything like my spyder2, etc...etc

CWSkopec

Art,
Wev'e got Vista here at work and use the full adobe suite without problems. I've also got Vista at home and although I had to Google search for a driver or two, it wasn't that bad. Even the switch between XP and Vista in terms of just getting used to the OS wasn't that bad. Most things are pretty much where you would expect them to be and the Search feature within Windows Explorer works really well for finding the things that have moved (plus you can search for tags in the metadata too).

One thing to consider if you've got a home network, networking Vista and XP computers is annoying at best. I just dragged out my old XP unit this weekend and attempted networking it with my Vista laptop, and, well... let's just say I haven't gotten it figured out yet. One of the IT guys at work here suggested some "easy" ways to make it work, but I haven't had the time to work through that yet, so I'm usure if it truly works.

Andy

Get a Mac?
:hide

Art Scott

Andy wrote:

Get a Mac?
:hide

Don't see that happening..........I mean why to do I want to pay for an over priced INTEL box......what I am looking at is less than $700 with 3 yrs of onsite (my house or office) support.......Mac just ain't what it used to be 20yrs ago:D or even maybe 10yrs ago....but I lost respect for them when they started offering intel boxes and I read somewhere that clones are next in the very near future....when that happens maybe then.......I had to wait for IBM clones to comeo ut before I could afford my 1st PC .........Oh well I was hoping you had something really worthwhile to say

OK if I go VISTA 64 bit should that be ULTIMATE or a lower version.....I have never run anything besides XP PRO since I let 98SE go............

Tango

:banned

EarthDog

Art Scott wrote:

...it is set up for all SATA drives ...

If you mean literally ALL your drives, including your optical drive (CD/DVD), I'd go with Vista. XP had, and may still have, problems with installations from SATA drives. I can't remember the reason, but it wasn't able to load the drivers, which left you in a catch-22 situation. This may have been fixed, but you'd have to research that, and Vista is not the anti-christ of operating systems that some people make out. I like it, and have had NO problems with it (aside from the usual "where the !@#$% did they put..." aggravations).

WIll I gain anything by going 64 bit over 32 bit (besides headaches of course)??

Not much, no. The higher memory support that someone mentioned is the biggie, at the moment, and PhotoShop CS4 is 64 bit, which gives you the ability to use more than 3GB of RAM. But, hardly anyone actually needs that, and it doesn't mean CS4 is lightning fast compared to CS3. (But CS4 DOES look really cool )

Art Scott

LiquidAir wrote:

The primary advantage of 64 bit is that it lets you use more than about 3GB of memory. If you put 4GB of memory in the box about 1GB will be mapped out by a 32bit OS to make room for the PCI bus and other devices.

As for Vista vs. XP, that's a harder call. If you think you will be upgrading to Vista a some point, it is probably best to get it out of the way up front. I wouldn't install 64 bit XP because most of the 64 bit bug fixes and drivers will be targeted at Vista, but if you think you can live with 32 bit XP for the life of the machine it might make sense.

So i can run upto 3gb of ram on my 32bit XP PRO.....Now my network is set up so the other computer can get on line only....not look at files and such....so would that be a prob for one to be XP and the other Vista......I can see a great value in getting as much ram as possible but since this particular mobo's capacity is 4 gb....maybe I should just run 32 bit until I get the system BUILT that I want.......which wil have to be 64 bit as it will have a quad processor, 8-10gb of ram and inside the full tower 10-16 (500gb) drives......and air conditioning for cooling

Art Scott

AaronNelson wrote:

:banned

Woooo me???? or that fellow ducking the pc bricks above or the mentioning of the maczrofl

LiquidAir

EarthDog wrote:

If you mean literally ALL your drives, including your optical drive (CD/DVD), I'd go with Vista. XP had, and may still have, problems with installations from SATA drives. I can't remember the reason, but it wasn't able to load the drivers, which left you in a catch-22 situation. This may have been fixed, but you'd have to research that, and Vista is not the anti-christ of operating systems that some people make out. I like it, and have had NO problems with it (aside from the usual "where the !@#$% did they put..." aggravations).

I just installed XP Pro on a machine from a SATA optical drive so it works. The install disk I used had SP2 so that might have fixed the issue.

One thing to be aware of is that if you want to use a raid as a boot drive you'll probably want to put a floppy drive in the box to load the RAID driver during install. There are other ways to do it, but the floppy is the easiest.

Art Scott

The soon to be new box has room for 10 sata ll drives and it looks like 1 more EIDE drive as the CD/DVD RW=/- dual layer lightscribe optical drive is EIDE so I can add 1 more cd/dvd writer or rom to be able to do direct copies of other disks.........from what I have read about raid configurations and what it actually does to information stored with in.....well I do not trust it as well as having 6 separate drives that have exactly the same info on them....from what I have researched raid is not a clone or exact copy but rather the files are "torn" apart and then pieced back togehter when called upon to be loadedto be worked with.....again I couod be all wrong as I have not research raid in a liittle over a year.......but I will stay with separate drives that are exact clones and if I go vista it looks like my new drives will actuall be closer in usable gbs tahn they are in this old box.....I have lost as much as 1-2gb off drives...and just learned to deal with it............

LiquidAir

Art Scott wrote:

The soon to be new box has room for 10 sata ll drives and it looks like 1 more EIDE drive as the CD/DVD RW=/- dual layer lightscribe optical drive is EIDE so I can add 1 more cd/dvd writer or rom to be able to do direct copies of other disks.........from what I have read about raid configurations and what it actually does to information stored with in.....well I do not trust it as well as having 6 separate drives that have exactly the same info on them....from what I have researched raid is not a clone or exact copy but rather the files are "torn" apart and then pieced back togehter when called upon to be loadedto be worked with.....again I couod be all wrong as I have not research raid in a liittle over a year.......but I will stay with separate drives that are exact clones and if I go vista it looks like my new drives will actuall be closer in usable gbs tahn they are in this old box.....I have lost as much as 1-2gb off drives...and just learned to deal with it............

It depends on what kind of RAID you make.

RAID 0:
The files are split alternating sectors across 2 drives which speeds access.

RAID 1:
The files are automatically duplicated on two drives for security. Either drive can fail and you lose no data.

RAID 5:
Three or more discs in a more complicated configuration which provides both redundancy and speed.

With the low price hard drives, RAID 1 is cheap peace of mind, particularly for your boot volume. If one of the drives goes south, just drop in a replacement and you are back up and running in no time. Without it, recovering from a crashed boot volume is a major hassle even if you are good about backups.

Tango

Art Scott wrote:

Woooo me???? or that fellow ducking the pc bricks above or the mentioning of the maczrofl

the "banned" was for the Mac bandit...

cmason

OK I have said this in other threads. I was in same shoes. I ended up with the Mac. For me, it was the same price as the Dell I was considering plus the good monitor. So it wasnt more expensive. If you don't need a monitor, it probably is more expensive.

To the point: i have XP Pro, XP Home, Vista, and now a Mac. All running, here at the house. At one point I have used all these systems for photography, primarily running Lightroom and PS CS2.

All of these systems top out at 3GB of memory. Mac OS can handle more, but my iMac physically can only support 3GB. Vista and XP can only handle 3GB regardless of hardware, but the 64Bit version can handle more, though I have no experience with it.

I have found the biggest impact to performance with the machines I have is memory. 3 of the above systems are Core Duo or Core 2 Duo, so I haven't noticed much difference in CPU. PS CS2 is snappier on dual core machines when doing blurs and such that take a long time.

The biggest difference I have found is how these systems take advantage of the hardware. When I run Lightroom and PS CS2 on the Windows machines (Vista or XP), these systems are tapped out: no more memory available, and the CPU is often taxed. But on the Mac, there is still plenty of CPU and memory available, in fact, I can run Windows in VMWare Fusion along with all this.

I don't have any specific figures, and I am just going on observation here. But I do know that I can do more on the OSX machine than the Windows machines. Granted the Windows machines are not the highest spec machines, but I do see a difference that is more than just hardware here.

ChrisJ

I'm an IT professional and I plan to skip Vista for home use. It really doesn't offer me anything that I need above XP. I have 4 gig of memory on my home system (3.x gig usable of course), and speed has not been an issue. I'm currently using Photoshop CS3 as my editor.

32-bit vs. 64-bit. Unless things have improved, I would tend to stay away from XP 64-bit. There were/are a lot of software incompatibilities. I believe 64-bit under Vista is better, but make sure all the programs you want to run will work if you go that route. But Photoshop is not an issue, it will run better in 64-bit.

I do not run RAID at home. I like my system quiet, so I don't like to put in extra hard drives. But I frequently back up my data drive to an external disk. If my OS drive dies (which it hasn't, knock on silicon), I can rebuild it with no fear of losing data. If I was more paranoid, I would keep an on/offline mirror of it. But I also have an entire spare system just in case.

I'll stay out of the PC/Mac debate. I like them both for different reasons. I have ThinkPad and a PowerBook (soon to be a MacBook Pro?) on my desk at work.

Just my thoughts...

Art Scott

Thanx every one for your views...


.....if I had the money to re-purchase all of my current software and also the EXTRA money needed to go mac...then I might, as i could use the extra business write off.....but there is no way I can get a mac, any mac, not just one that barely exceeds what this box will do.....as I stated above....it is a mid tower core 2 duo comes with 2gb ram will do 4gb and at under 700$ with the 3yr in house service (supposedly with 24 hrs of notification) I can't beat it.....mac won't come close..........now when I get ready for a desktop replacement laptop then maybe I'll be looking harder at mac................I at one time decided to restart a project and decided I could accomplish just as good a final project with the basic beginner equiptment......well I got it accomplished and decided I would from then on only use the best I could afford and cut no more corners than truly need to be cut.....so this time around no refurbs or used equiptment .....all new.

Art Scott

ChrisJ wrote:

32-bit vs. 64-bit. Unless things have improved, I would tend to stay away from XP 64-bit. There were/are a lot of software incompatibilities. I believe 64-bit under Vista is better, but make sure all the programs you want to run will work if you go that route. But Photoshop is not an issue, it will run better in 64-bit.

I do not run RAID at home. I like my system quiet, so I don't like to put in extra hard drives. But I frequently back up my data drive to an external disk. If my OS drive dies (which it hasn't, knock on silicon), I can rebuild it with no fear of losing data. If I was more paranoid, I would keep an on/offline mirror of it. But I also have an entire spare system just in case.

I'll stay out of the PC/Mac debate. I like them both for different reasons. I have ThinkPad and a PowerBook (soon to be a MacBook Pro?) on my desk at work.

Just my thoughts...

32 vs 64 bit......I am only running PS7 CS and CS2....going to skip CS3 and go to CS4 or CS5 next............it is my understanding of cs4 that it takes or needs 64 bit....so there is my decideing factor......but I will keep an older machine running just in case I need one of the over 1.5K plugins in PS7....

I also like a quiet machine, hence the reason I run only Seagate drives....I have used Maxtor, WD, Hitachi and all of them kept me awake at night and the were in a different room with doors closed.....but I should have known what drives not to use as I worked for 13 yrs for NCR-Wichita (until Att bought it) and Seagate was the most reliable and quietest drive even back then......back then = when hdd actually weighed in at over 350lbs and the platters were a solid 24 inches across.......man I was jumpin for joy when the first micro tower (12 inches wide x 26 inches deep and a whooping 36 inches tall...damn that was small).......

As for my system....I have over 6 exact copies of my storage drives and also 3 copies of my "C" drive......if I load a new piece of software, especially if it was a download purchase, I immediately reformat the 3 "C" drive copies and then Migrate the running "C" over to the other 3.....2 of which are not kept on site.....downloaded software is bundled sorta like we sort our photos and placed on DVD and also on 2 software externals.....

So in a sense it is sort like Raid 1 but I do it manually and for the other redundant drives I only update when i add new raw files and then when I add new finished photos to that system of drives......

I have had my "c" drive to die a smoking death and was glad I had the copies to fall back on....which I immediately purchased another seagate hdd and did a total migrate to it.....I always keep 3 and the newest one go to a safe and the oldeset on goes on Machine.......gotta rotate the stock...instead of FIFO...it is FILO.......

Again thanx everyone for your help.

Blackwood

EarthDog wrote:

If you mean literally ALL your drives, including your optical drive (CD/DVD), I'd go with Vista. XP had, and may still have, problems with installations from SATA drives. I can't remember the reason, but it wasn't able to load the drivers, which left you in a catch-22 situation. This may have been fixed, but you'd have to research that, and Vista is not the anti-christ of operating systems that some people make out. I like it, and have had NO problems with it (aside from the usual "where the !@#$% did they put..." aggravations).


Not much, no. The higher memory support that someone mentioned is the biggie, at the moment, and PhotoShop CS4 is 64 bit, which gives you the ability to use more than 3GB of RAM. But, hardly anyone actually needs that, and it doesn't mean CS4 is lightning fast compared to CS3. (But CS4 DOES look really cool )

I have all SATA drives (optical included) on my XP-x64 machine. Running solidly with 8GB of ram and quad core.

I rarely touch that much memory other than CAD applications.

Blackwood

LiquidAir wrote:

It depends on what kind of RAID you make.

RAID 0:
The files are split alternating sectors across 2 drives which speeds access.

RAID 1:
The files are automatically duplicated on two drives for security. Either drive can fail and you lose no data.

RAID 0 and RAID 1 can both increase performance. RAID 0 improves write access (since the write speed of one drive is limited, and you're only writing half the data to each drive), while RAID 1 improves read access (since the system has two drives from which to pull the same data).

As you mentioned, RAID 5 is kinda the best of both world, but not completely since it potentially only uses one parity drive. RAID 10 (mirrored stripes) or RAID 01 (striped mirrors). is better.

jasonstone

Art Scott wrote:

mac won't come close...............all new.

you should at least try one out - a 24" iMac is not that expensive and has an awesome screen
I used to be deep deep in Windows world as a developer - even asked to consider moving from UK to Redmond, US to work

Now there is no way in hell I will ever buy a PC for home usage - i love my mac - as it just works - i have no down time - when i turn it on - i just go to work... on my pc it's always something or the other or a frazillion security updates or a virus scanner or a firewall bogging down the system

I know it's not what you want to hear now - but maybe pop down to a store and check one out and consider that a mac will last you 4 years generally without hardware upgrades and you can update your OS every 18 months for relatively cheap and get seriously great new features

ok yeah I know I'm a convert - i just think it would be a shame to first go with the price and not to have at least taken a good look at an option that you could maybe finance from Apple and be happier in the long run...

Cheers, Jase

jasonstone

Oh and about RAID - if it's by the OS then it will take resources and slow things down - best to buy external WD drive (for example) with 2 X 500GB drives in it and it does the RAID (mirroring - not striping) for you

Cheers, Jase