8 core?

[azngosu]

omg ! my 1 core feells so lonely with all this 2 core .. 4 core and now OMG 8 CORE .. =[

[Synbios]

...I have no idea what the relation is between the bit of the OS and the amount of RAM it can handle.

Besides standard Vista is a 32 bit OS isn't it?

If it's a 32bit OS that means it can only make 2^32 address in the ram, which is the same as 4GBs.

If it's a 64bit OS you can make 2^64 address in the ram, which is the same as 17'179'869'184GBs (though in practise due to both hardware and software constraints this is a lot lower, but will increase over time).

Vista 32bit OS can not have more than 4GBs of ram, just as a 32bit CPU can not have more than 4GBs or ram, thus the push in to 64bits.

Although 32-bit OS'es should in theory support 4 GB of ram, if you've ever installed 4 Gigs to 32-bit windows XP pro you'll find that only 3 gigs will be useable.

Other 32-bit OSes such as Windows 2003 Servers, and Vista 32-bit can use all 4 gigs though.

Right now the 975X chipset by intel only supports up to 8 Gigs. But the limitation for 64-bit, as quantum has mentioned, is basically infinite for what we have now.

[TheNightWatchman]

yes I use 2.5GB with XP and don't really see any point of increasing that.

Interesting to see that 64 bit makes the RAM more available... i really don't want to shift to vista 

[Quantum]

yes I use 2.5GB with XP and don't really see any point of increasing that.

Interesting to see that 64 bit makes the RAM more available... i really don't want to shift to vista 

I've been using XP x64 on my computer for some time now. I use programs like mathematica which take advantage of 64 bits. Planning to upgrade my computer towards the end of the year (will probabily be look at 4GBs of RAM), unless Vista SP1 has come out at that point and I feel enough programs have migrated, I think I'll stick with my current OS.

XP x64 was a pain for drives and stuff to start off with, but it's pretty easy to use now. You have to be a bit more conisderate when buying stuff (especially webcams and worth checking out printers as well), but all in all for my uses it coverts everything I need.

[Synbios]

As time goes on more and more things will become 64bit and multithreaded. The technology we have now is not even close to it's full potential.

[texasboy]

  Although vista has somewhat better security features. Win XP is much faster. Maybe things will change,lol.
cheers

[Quantum]

Although vista has somewhat better security features. Win XP is much faster. Maybe things will change,lol.
cheers

Things won't change, OS take more resources each generation, that's not going to change. Hell, the latest version of Ubuntu has a system requirement of 256 MB of RAM, I remember when many Linux Distributions proudly proclaimed that 64 MB of RAM was more than enough. But time moves on and you want your OS to do more and more and deal with more and more things. The real question is, given what Vista can do that XP can't, is it worth those extra resources? And given at the moment there is very little that Vista does that XP doesn't, applications aren't devloped for, drivers aren't well supported and a lot of legacy hardware support has been lost for Vista. XP is clearly a superior choice over Vista at the moment.

But Windows 98 SE was a suprior choice over XP for at least the first year of XP, but when SP1 and eventually SP2 came out and things started heavily supporting XP and lower end hardware became more than capable of smoothly running XP, things were a lot better.

[Synbios]

As I said in an earlier topic, windows OSes are always poorly supported and crappy when they first come out. But you're going to have to get it eventually, as soon it will become the norm.

yes XP is faster than vista but windows 2000 was faster than XP. If you put a brand new OS on a brand new system it will be faster than an old OS on an old System. If you put a brand new OS on an old system you're shit out of luck.

Obviously, new system on old OS would be the fastest, but is that really the best choice?

I was trying to choose between vista 64bit and XP 64bit, I decided to chose Vista although I know my new system would kick a lot more butt if I was running XP 64bit.