El DJ

Yeah, true, not so much for gaming, but for other things, it's pretty nifty.

MightyKing

Definately XP, I'm a vista user and Vista just will not allow you to enjoy your games. Plus it eats tons of ram.

Havent tried Linux, but heard it was really good. By experience of XP and Vista, I would go XP 100%

MatrixEVO

Get more, problem solved. RAM is cheap, upgrade it, and Vista will run so much better. 4GB is ideal. As we speak, Vista is using a little over 1GB of my RAM and I only have FireFox open. I never run out, but sometimes it goes up to 3.2GB usage, and Vista would run like crap if I had only 1GB or 2GB of RAM.

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I don't own a computer! It's great! I don't waste lots of time anymore!

MightyKing

Yeah you're right, apart from the ram I just don't like how it has compability issues with some software. That would the the only other con. Other than that I loved the OS, full of Pros.

It's just that everything ran smoothly with XP, we just have to give Vista some time.

Garethman!!`

I have yet to Vista be un-smooth, on this PC and on my Laptop, it actually boots and runs faster than XP does on my other partition on the same HDD. XP also has nothing except games installed as I use it to play some old games which don't work on 64-bit.

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CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 / AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-53 1.70GHz
RAM : 8GB DDR2 PC6400 / 2GB DDR2-667 PC5300 A-DATA
HDD : 750GB SATA Seagate Barracuda/ Western Digital Scorpio 250GB 7200RPM
GPU : Radeon HD2900XT 512MB / Radeon Xpress 1150 128MB
OS : Windows Vista Ultimate x64 / Windows Vista Home Premium

MightyKing

But not all games run on Vista.

JLV2k5

Vista is the future, all newer games run on Vista.

Vista 64 supports more than 3.5 gigs of RAM

Vista supports DX10 GPUs

Vista has a nice look

__________________

Can't wait to finish college and build my system.

Garethman!!`

Indeed, why get a brand new PC and make it look like your old Pentium III 1GHz PC

Vista is the wave of the future, I agree JLV2k5

__________________
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 / AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-53 1.70GHz
RAM : 8GB DDR2 PC6400 / 2GB DDR2-667 PC5300 A-DATA
HDD : 750GB SATA Seagate Barracuda/ Western Digital Scorpio 250GB 7200RPM
GPU : Radeon HD2900XT 512MB / Radeon Xpress 1150 128MB
OS : Windows Vista Ultimate x64 / Windows Vista Home Premium

JLV2k5

Thank you. Go Vista

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Can't wait to finish college and build my system.

tlarkin

Depending on what kind of games you want to play. Some companies port their games to Linux like ID, and there is a small gaming community. If you are more hardcore into gaming I would suggest windows, but heed my advice before you take it into consideration of XP versus Vista.

Here go the Cons of Vista:

Compatibility - not everything that works in XP works in vista, however all new games and software will run fine in XP. We are no where near running a full 64 bit OS anywhere in any market. 32bit will still be around for several more years to come, possibly longer. Heck MS just finally pulled the plug on Win 98 like a year or two ago.

DX10 - thats right, DX10 is a pro and a con. The con side of it is, that since Vista is so resource hungry and offers no actual performance increase you will get less frames per a second in your games running DX 10. This may be fixed (I would hope so) in the near future or it may take some time. DX 10 only offers better eye candy. Google it, and you will see many examples of how DX10 runs games a lot slower than DX9 in XP.

Resource Hog - Vista is the most resource hungry OS ever created. Compare it to XP, Linux, and OS X (Unix, etc) and no OS requires that much to run. Other OSes also have just as much if not more Open GL eye candy and intuitiveness over Vista. I just hate to pay for something that does not offer me any kind of real world performance increase.


Security - its not more secure over XP, it uses the same permissions and the same kernel, the only difference is that it gives the illusion of more security constantly asking your opinion if you should open or download something.

SMB2 - increased network traffic by 1600% and breaks compatibility with other non windows platforms. Only affects you if you have a mac or a linux box on your network and wish to file/print share to a vista box.

I will stop there, but could go on and on.

Now for the Pros of Vista:

64bit support - break the 32bit memory barrier, which for some may be a plus. I don't know of any application that requires more than 3 gigs of RAM. Unused RAM is wasted RAM, but at the same time unused RAM is not always a super bad thing.

DX10 - looks pretty, gets the latest eye candy in gaming

Aero - if you want a 3D desktop environment and don't want to run Linux/Beryl/Compiz or OS X then this is for you

Some things overhauled - faster find and search options, stability monitor, it auto sets a lot of things up (which can be a con to some) for those who don't know how to network or do other mundane tasks.

XP Pros-
-Stable
-Runs all windows applicaitons current and future
-is not a resource hog

XP Cons
-only DX9 (until they release DX10 for it, there is an open source project)
-32bit (though there is a 64bit version of XP Pro)
-no nifty 3D desktop environment

Linux pros
-secure - NO known viruses in the wild
-open source - you can always find a solution for free for whatever you are trying to do
-many choices and flavors to choose from
-great online community support

Linux Cons-
-Higher learning curve
-It is not windows, many people expect it to be
-There is always a linux alternative, except for gaming
-some compatibility issues but not that many

So, really it depends on what you want to do. The choice is up to you and I just listed some facts to help you make your choice. My personal opinion is that vista does not offer any reason to upgrade at this point in time. This is my opinion and you can search through these forums to find all what I have said about vista if you truly want to know.