XP or Vista

[tlarkin]

The only reason I voted for XP now is because of compatibilty and support issues. The performance is not an issue for me because my system is robust enough to run either one. Maybe later if they get all the bugs worked out I will vote for Vista.

well with Xp you aren't getting that full 4 gigs of RAM.

 

[Diamondsleeper]

well with Xp you aren't getting that full 4 gigs of RAM.

As if what I am actually getting is not enough.. Who cares? Its close enough.. You should see this thing Rock! No compatibilty road blocks No hassles. Like I said, Vista may become as hassle free as I find XP to be right now. I have the Home Premium edition disc and have tried it for a while but It just isn't worth messing with right now.

 

[tlarkin]

As if what I am actually getting is not enough.. Who cares? Its close enough.. You should see this thing Rock!

Well, I see your rig stats, but have to disagree with running RAID 0 and IMHO, SLI is kind of a waste of money because it doesn't improve performance overall, and in some cases it actually has performed less than with a standalone video card.

What exactly do you use that thing for? Gaming, or are you like video editing or something that would actually utilize that RAID?

 

[TheGuy]

Vista for me. Just because for its beautiful MediaCenter
otherwise XP is 1000000000x much better!

 

[Jabes]

urrm yes

thats wat I was hopin

 

[Diamondsleeper]

Well, I see your rig stats, but have to disagree with running RAID 0 and IMHO, SLI is kind of a waste of money because it doesn't improve performance overall, and in some cases it actually has performed less than with a standalone video card.

What exactly do you use that thing for? Gaming, or are you like video editing or something that would actually utilize that RAID?

I don't think I am going to get into a debate about how you "think" my RAID 0 works or how I should use RAID. I know how it works and I know first hand the difference it makes on my rig. Same with the SLI comparison you made. I built this machine for a specific purpose. To do exactly what I want it to do , and it does it.

 

[funkysnair]

the foot has been put down!

 

[mep916]

I don't think I am going to get into a debate

With tlarkin? That's probably a good idea.

 

[tlarkin]

the foot has been put down!

Yeah, it has totally been put down. I run lots of RAID environments for work, set up multiple RAIDs for audio recording and video production. I have both independent record labels and video production companies as clients. There are tons of articles on Tomshardware.com about how SLI is pretty much not worth the money. Running RAID 0 does not improve gaming performance, it does not give you more frames per a second, it may load the game slightly faster and you run a higher risk of failure since all data is stored across multiple drives and if one drive fails your whole RAID crashes.

 

[funkysnair]

yeh-put me off raid that did-

people have different thoughts and needs though thats the thing...

personaly i dont game- hence my graphics card (lol) so i dont really understand the sli stuff

 

[mep916]

I've never run a Raptor unstriped, so personally, I don't know the difference between a single drive and a striped drive when gaming, for example. I'm not uncomfortable w/ a RAID 0 setup and OK w/ the seemingly negligible performance increase when using a striped array. As far as data loss, I backup my OS on an external drive and an independent internal drive on a nightly basis. Overkill? Perhaps. However, I'm aware of the risk that this type of setup presents, and it doesn't hurt to be "too careful."

SLI is another story. With the original cost of the GTX, plus the cost to step up to the Ultra, I paid over $700 for a setup that is currently performing worse than the SLi'd GTXes. Basically, I feel like I !$%*ed myself. Everything I've read (from reliable sources) suggests SLi is not worth the cost. From what I understand, SLi is only beneficial when running resolutions above 1920 X 1200. <- Even that's debatable.

 

[Jabes]

I've never run a Raptor unstriped, so personally, I don't know the difference between a single drive and a striped drive when gaming, for example. I'm not uncomfortable w/ a RAID 0 setup and OK w/ the seemingly negligible performance increase when using a striped array. As far as data loss, I backup my OS on an external drive and an independent internal drive on a nightly basis. Overkill? Perhaps. However, I'm aware of the risk that this type of setup presents, and it doesn't hurt to be "too careful."

SLI is another story. With the original cost of the GTX, plus the cost to step up to the Ultra, I paid over $700 for a setup that is currently performing worse than the SLi'd GTXes. Basically, I feel like I !$%*ed myself. Everything I've read (from reliable sources) suggests SLi is not worth the cost. From what I understand, SLi is only beneficial when running resolutions above 1920 X 1200. <- Even that's debatable.

yea it doesn't hurt to be over careful even tho I never backup my hard drive cuz it would take awhile to backup a 500 gig hard drive

 

[mep916]

yea it doesn't hurt to be over careful even tho I never backup my hard drive cuz it would take awhile to backup a 500 gig hard drive

Do have 500 gigs of data? You should partition only the space you need for the OS. Other partitons' could store media and other files.

 

[tlarkin]

Yeah, when I got my current job it was a significant pay increase and I was going to build a brand new PC just for gaming. I really want to play starfcraft 2 and Fallout 3 really badly because I loved the earlier versions of those games as a kid.

I looked into running two slightly cheaper video cards in SLI mode, because my initial thought was, 2 mid grade cards in parallel processing mode would run better than one higher end card. Which, later I found out that my initial logic was completely wrong. I then read into SLI a lot, and the more I read into it the more I found that really it doesn't do anything but cost you more money. I think people just do it for the prestige. It is like all these people buying Vista Ultimate and when in reality Home Premium would have suited them better.

Also, if vista had boasted EFI support then we might have actually seen some bad ass EFI based video cards to come out, but then again MS just put vista out as a cash cow. Hopefully they will get rid of the registry completely, have self contained applications, dual library files (for both 64bit and 32bit) so everything can live in perfect harmony side by side, decent driver support, EFI support, and a command line binary for all gui based applications in Windows Vienna. Then windows would kick ass again, oh and if they locked down the kernel so no more access to kernel hooks. That would even up the security of windows.

 

[tlarkin]

yea it doesn't hurt to be over careful even tho I never backup my hard drive cuz it would take awhile to backup a 500 gig hard drive

Well, what you need to do is, when you build your next PC, retire your old one to a file server. Install Linux on it, run samba services on it, connect all your windows clients to a giant centralized network hard drive, then back up the server via rsync to an external HD or another device and set up a cron job so it does it every night at 3 AM. Then you will be set.

 

[cybereclipse]

i prefer xp... but mostly osx86!!!!

 

[mep916]

SLi is obviously a marketing scheme designed to sell more GPUs. Unfortunately, I bought into it. Of course, as you said, nVidia are also appealing to those that are seeking the "bragging rights" and benchmarking scores that come with running two high-end GPUs. All I would really like is performance. I'm gonna install some games and 3DMark06 on a XP partition and see how things run there.

I've read that Microsoft is ditching the 32bit platform completely - as opposed to combining the libraries. What do you think?

 

[tlarkin]

I've read that Microsoft is ditching the 32bit platform completely - as opposed to combining the libraries. What do you think?

That is going to piss off a lot of developers and users that want to be able to access legacy softwares. Personally, I am okay with that as long as everything I want to do is supported. I prefer how redhat and OS X did it with dual libraries for each platform.

 

[Jabes]

Do have 500 gigs of data? You should partition only the space you need for the OS. Other partitons' could store media and other files.

yea around that much i think I have like 440 gigs maybe but I have a vista partion thats 120 gigs I just need to find a hard drive

 

[jutnm]

i think most ppl who choose XP bc they have only experienced XP only and not the side of vista ............................................................