XP pro 32, 64 or Vista 32 or 64?

How much faster is xp 64 than 32? Is vista 64 ready for prime time yet? Will 64 bit make video editing faster? I have some questions on this and if anyone can answer I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

That will all depend on what hardware you have really.

I will get whatever hardware I need. Money is not an issue but I don't want a $1000 cpu either.

I think I have decided to do a dual boot and keep my xp pro and add vista on my new machine. I have never done it before. What are the recommendations on doing this?

But now for something else I am debating. I really have some important things that I can't lose. I was wondering how many of you feel about raid 1. I know, I know it is not as fast as raid 0, but I have seen in many reports that it is faster in almost everything else than a single drive.
So, what do you think if I get 2 320gb hdd and partition them for xp and vista. I use a raid 1 to make my system a little more fool proof. Then I add two more 500gb hdd and raid those to use for my videos, pics, docs etc.
Right now I have a 500gb external hdd that I use as backup with acronis and I would use that with this new system to add another line of backup.
What would be your ideal system?

I think 32-bit OSs have a RAM limit or something....

Yup, Xp32bit was written when most mobo's supported a maximum of 3 gig of ram.

I think Vista 32-bit has a 3 or 4 gig RAM limit too, correct me if I am wrong.
So it also depends on how much RAM you plan on installing, and I believe that your graphics RAM counts too, for example if you have a graphics card with 512MB of RAM, and you have 3GB of RAM and XP 32-bit installed, you will only see and be able to use 3GB of RAM. Also, 32-bit and 64-bit should cost the same.

Chris

Graphics card ram has nothing whatsoever to do with mobo ram unless you have built-in graphics on said mobo.

You could fit a graphics card with 10gig of ram (if one existed) and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to mobo ram.

They are 2 entirely separate things.


[edit] For video editing, i personally think that xp64 would be best provided that you could find good working drivers for all of your hardware. I have tried xp64 but i had to take it back as i couldnt get mobo lan driver, graphics card driver, and net connection driver that would actually work at all.

If I am going to dual boot using xp 64 and vista 64 what things do I really need to know?
Hardware?
Software?
How do I find out what works?

Wrong, a certain amount of system ram is reserved for video memory swapping. That's why in 32-bit Windows the amount of usable memory will vary depending on the amount of onboard memory your video card has. Some people have 2.75GB of main memory show up, some have up to 3.2GB.

I personally have never seen that apart from on mobo's with built in graphics.

Taken from http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

Its a bit of a moot point tho, this thread is about the ram limit of various os's.
I was referring to post #8 where the poster says

where it makes no difference in his example anyway.

Well yes granted, that example is not a very good one.

If I am going to dual boot using xp 64 and vista 64 what things do I really need to know?
Hardware?
Software?
How do I find out what works?

Google, thats the best way to find info.

I went to the microsoft site and can't find any thing really for the 64 bit vista that shows hardware and software compatibility. I have done a bunch of googling but must have missed some.

This any help? - http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=64 bit vista drivers&meta=

If I would happen to use 32 bit for my os, is 3gb or 4 just wasting money?