buying new pc (many vista questions)

[finerty]

ok so i want to purchase a new pc soon after christmas.

my pc has been unable to play the latest games for about a year.

Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005


AMD Athlon™ 64 FX-62 - Socket AM2
2048MB DDR2 533MHz Memory - (2x 1024MB)
768MB nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX


basically several questions

do i need to get Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition to make good use of the cpu?


is it still possible to get restore cd's for pc's (i hate those partioned restore drives)?

i plan to upgrade to vista when it is released will this be in the form of a cd?

ive been told it would be possible to dual boot my pc to play both new vista games and old xp games but it dosen't seem to be possible to get an installation cd for xp even though the pc comes with it?

[classicsoftware]

Every PC that has Microsoft Windows XP OEM allows you to have THREE copies of the OS. One is installed on the PC, the second is on the restore partition and third is on a CD or DVD. Every PC should have a way of creating a restore CD from the restore partition.

[finerty]

might i add a YAY in here just found out that all versions of vista except starter are both 32 bit and 64 bit on the same disk so no worrys there ill just get the xp media and put up with lossing some cpu power in xp (even reduced it will shred xp games (from 2006)) and then when i dual boot put the 64 bit version on for games that are released for vista and need the full power of the cpu.

could some one just double check my logic as my experiance of OS and dual booting are very limited (up untill now OS hasn't really mattered for my gaming).



ps. i have never had a pc with a partishioned restore area before if i get one with xp then install vista does the partion get changed ie. do i need to make sure to copy xp onto a disk so i can swap back at a later date BEFORE i install a new OS (vista)

pps. im planing to buy this pc from mesh (im not skilled enough to put one together myself) is mesh a good choice (can't find any other decent sellers)?

and might i add wow i love these forumns :D very helpful

[Erik]

I have totally lost you. How will XP cause you to lose CPU power? If anything Vista will be the one that will kill you performance as it is more of a resource hog. I have Vista installed on a spare PC for testing purposes, and it dual boots with XP. XP is much faster than Vista.

As for the whole dual booting thing I don't get what media you are talking about. It seems to me you are looking to buy an OEM PC from Dell or whoever, because you keep mentioning restore CDs or restore partitions. If you do get an OEM PC then the OS media won't allow you the option to dual boot (if both OSs are from an OEM maker anyway). They will just bring your PC back to the way it was when you bought it. There might be a very few small exceptions, but for the most part it is a completely automated process with no options for dual booting.

Last;y I don't know that 64 bit is the way to go. So far there is not much reason to use a 64 bit OS. That might be changing in the future though, who knows.

[finerty]

ok erik im desperatly trying to hold on to my grasp of how to buy a pc


i assume that a 64 bit cpu will run slower in a 32 bit enviroment than a 64 bit one (xp media is 32 bit and vista is 64 bit)

to answer the other question i need a definition of OEM? (last pc i brought was 4 years ago when OS didn't really matter to gaming)


as to wether to use 64 bit processers the best amd cpu is 64 bit so not much choice and vista is a 64 bit OS so no reason not to use it.
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ok ive changed my mind im going to build this pc as i can get the parts at about 400 pounds cheaper from local supllieres and it will be more fun how can i buy the windows xp OS?

[finerty]

make that £150 cheaper as xp costs 150 :(

and then ill have to pay to buy vista as well but at least then i can dual boot it

[Erik]

You won't be running any slower because you have a 64 bit capable processor and a 32 bit OS. This only really has any affect on the amount of RAM supported. The 64 bit versions of Windows will support more RAM. There is a 64 bit version of XP availble, and Vista will be offered in both 64 and 32 bit versions. Currently not much software has true 64 bit support, so there is really no gain for having a true 64 bit system yet.

OEM would be like you bought a PC prebuilt from Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. Those CDs you get (got) will not be able to do a dual boot setup. Also they will only work on the PC that they came with. So don't rely on building a dual boot system with them.

[PatioFurniture]

real quick...why a FX-62 over a core 2 extreme?

[finerty]

i prefer amd to intel just personal preferance really


so if i build it myself and buy both OS (wow thats expensive) i will be able to dual boot it or just swap OS every month or so

[saphalline]

Erik was merely explaining that you probably couldn't dual-boot with both operating systems if you bought a computer. The big companies have proprietary methods of partitioning and dual-booting would either break that or cause problems. If you build it yourself, however, and buy WinXP and Vista separately, you should have no problems dual-booting.

[finerty]

:D i wasn't snapping at erik and im sorry if thats how it came out

what i was trying to say was that my grasp of what im talking about is very low (well it was:) ) and that im trying not to lose track of the information

thx to everyone for the advice and i think i understand the OS situation now

ps. thx erik for the information on 'bits'