best operating system for my PC?

[malawi89]

Hi,

I have the following specs:
Intel Q6600
Asus 9800GT Graphics Card
640 GB Hard drive
2 GB RAM (soon to be 4GB)

Which OS would work best with my PC? Is it necessarily a 64-bit OS?

[mjc]

What are you wanting to do? Game playing? General use? Business?

[malawi89]

yeah i'm looking to do some gaming- so far i've got spore and mass effect but i'll probably go onto some of the new fps's

[astoroth88]

Well, vista Ultimate edition supports 4gb of ram in 32-bit and you'll have access to Direct x 10 and you definitely have the specs to run it well.

[malawi89]

ok cool. and would 32-bit Vista be just as efficient as 64bit Win xp or vista?

[astoroth88]

The thing about 64bit is that it supports 5gb or more ram, up to 128gb ram I believe. I don't believe there is a difference in performance any farther than that though.
Also make sure you get Vista Ultimate, the others only support 3gb without going 64bit

[malawi89]

oh really eh? that's the only difference between 32 and 64 is the ability to go beyond 4gb?

so wouldn't win xp professional be the best performer since it uses less resources than vista ultimate?

[astoroth88]

Yes, but 32bit XP only supports 3gb of ram, where as Vista Ultimate (here's a link to newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116474) supports 4gb without going to a 64bit version.

[malawi89]

aah ok. thanks a lot

[malawi89]

how does windows xp 64-bit edition rank in your opinion?

[astoroth88]

No problem. Vista gets a bad rap for resource use, but it's ram consumption actually is a good thing for the OS as what ram it uses makes the OS faster, on 4gb i think it would use something around 1gb, so essentially you'll only have 3gb to use but the 1gb that it uses is to make your experience with vista alot smoother and 3gb is plenty to game with. Having directx 10 with the new games will also be nice as you will have better graphics on games that do support it. Also you will have Media Center with vista ultimate, so if you were to purchase a TV Tuner, you can watch cable television thru your computer! I will be using vista ultimate once I get my 4gb of RAM, atm though i have only 2gb.

[malawi89]

great thanks for all the help astoroth. i've got win xp 64-bit right now, but i'll consider grabbing a copy of vista ultimate.

[astoroth88]

It's a matter of taste IMO, but I will be switching to vista ultimate when I get my new ram like i said, because I want Direct X 10 lol

Edit*

Here is a list of games supporting Direct X 10 from WIKI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_10_support)

[malawi89]

yeah so far i'm not a huge fan of win xp 64 bit because it's not compatible with a lot of programs inc. windows live messenger, which is retarded.

[astoroth88]

That's with all 64 bit OS' unfortunately, driver and program incompatibility has always been an issue. Unfortuneatly x64 OS' aren't as mainstream as 32bit so companies don't usually pay much mind to it when it comes to 64bit compatibility, although they should.

[Symbyo CoE]

Just about every application out there that is worth using is made for windows. There is no good alternative. Linux gurus are now working for microsoft. Open source has no direction every step forward is a step backward. Windows OS is the wheel, we use to drive our pc's. Only the US MOD does anything good with other technology, and no average user currently has access to that. sure Microsoft are a big evil bloodsucking entity but so is coca cola and I love coke (the drink). So yep Windows is the best OS ever, nothing will ever beat it.

[PrntRhd]

Symbyo CoE,
You are entitled to your opinion, and it has been posted before that Windows is the swiss army knife of OSes. Also you did not direct your post to the OP question, so was it just to post your sig?
It should also be pointed out that Symbyo is an offshore developer for software and that may color any advice given.

I did remove your sig advertising your offshore business, this forum does not allow posting advertisements without the permission of the webmaster, so please don't replace it until/unless you get that permission.

[johnny_quest]

oh really eh? that's the only difference between 32 and 64 is the ability to go beyond 4gb?

so wouldn't win xp professional be the best performer since it uses less resources than vista ultimate?

I believe you're thinking as if the computer has unused potential accessible with a 64bit OS... the thing is... all consumer computers are built on 32 bit architecture so that's your weakest link.

You won't see a true affordable 64bit machine for a long time. For now, 64bit only exists in the software/cpu itself.