64-bit system / XP or Vista?

[Starf]

Hello all,

I recently ordered a new computer system with the following specs:

• Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.60GHz, 512Kx2)
• 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
• 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT- DDR3
• 250GB SATA II Hard Drive

Since it's a Dell system, it'll ship with Vista pre-installed on it; however, I can also get my hands on a 64-bit XP version. I was wondering which would be the better choice in terms of gaming performance for now.

I've leafed through a series of articles that scrutinize the Nvidia driver / hardware performance on Vista with as much as 30% performance loss for some titles; however, I am a bit worried about the 64 bit / dual core support under XP opposed to Vista. Ultimately, it seems like a tradeoff between GPU and CPU optimization, with XP doing good on the graphics, but Vista making the most of the duals and the 64-bit support.

Also, with controversy on 64-bit XP being unstable, would a 32-bit XP as a third alternative even make sense with this setup? I get the feeling that I'd be missing out on some potential performance, however I'd have a solid platform to rely on since I've been using XP on my past 2 machines without any major issues.

Thoughts, ideas, flames, tossed rocks? Thanks in advance!

 

[murzyn1975]

I have used the follwoing systems XP 32 and 64bit and Vista 32 and 64 bit and have chosen XP 32bit.

Here are some of my views:

I have a dual core system and XP 64 worked without any problems. The main reason for going back to 32 bit was that I lost some sofware as it was not compatible with 64.

After that I tried Vista and have to say that in my opinion it is a system with no real advantages. I installed FSX on vista and had problems with graphics, it seems that vista needs more memory etc. and therfore the graphics quality was lost. Went back to XP, installed FSX turned all the graphics and sound settings to maximum and the game has worked without a hitch.

I would opt for XP 32, but you may want to see if the others agree.

 

[emde]

I agree with murzyn1975. I have Athlon64 and win2k3 32bit cause the same reasons. Besides I've had many problem with drivers on 64-bit version:/

 

[pdyckman@comcas]

I can tell you only this. For gaming use Windows XP.

 

[gbhall]

Sure, go XP, since Vista will not be stable or efficient until SP2 (2009??). Other than that, why not set up a dual boot, so you keep the original Vista and can directly compare XP and Vista, and indeed choose the one you prefer day-to-day based on real experience. Also when Vista SP1 comes out (late 2007?) you can upgrade to that and compare all over again. I almost envy you.

 

[emde]

gbhall - good idea
I didn't noticed any difference in performance between 32 and 64-bit versions.
Anybody?

 

[lipe123]

biggest issue is that as far as i know only far cry and doom3 fully supports 64bit. all the other games runs on 32bit code So REALLY 64bit was a nice sales trick but its going to be eons before there will be widely available programs/games that will use 64bit.

Although xp64 supports 32bit its senseless to dump a perfectly (semi)stable XP32 with matured drivers and support for a half-assed newcomer that died before it could gain a foothold.

And Vista is just plain slow, in every review and bench I saw games performed slower on vista. Also vista requires so much resources just not to be snail-like that u end up sacrificing 1/2 of your ram/cpu just to see pretty desktop and then u still need to play a game