Win XP or Win 7 ?

[Rob Northen]

Currently I'am running Win XP 32, with 4GB RAM, Intel i3, 3GHZ.
I main use the machine for browsing/Word+Excel and run some test machines
in WMPlayer.

I have really thought about goint to Win 7 64.
But do you guys think it will be worth it ?

[ratdude747]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

Unless you need it for hardware/software compatibility or the like or already have a legit copy of 7, keep it at xp. for what you are doing, the system is overkill anyway... any performance gain by going x64 won't be really noticeable. Given the cost of win7, its not worth it.

if you had a copy of 7 already, then I'd go for it.

[joshnz]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

you can if you want, won't make any real difference though.
I run both.

[Rob Northen]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

Ok, thank mates!
I don't have Win 7, it will cost about 100£ (1042 DK KR) here in DK. I also had doubt about the gain, will not spend money on it then.

[Krankshaft]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

Windows XP 64 is very hard to come by and the people who are selling it are charging ridiculous prices. I considered XP 64 when building my current Quad Core rig after seeing the prices I just said screw it and put the money towards Windows 7 Pro.

Since I game on this thing I figured I'd be set for the inevitable Windows XP phaseout for games since the OS is getting long in the tooth.

No way was I going to pay close to the same price for an older OS.

They also include the 32 and 64 bit versions when you buy it unlike XP where they released 64 bit years later then double dipped the end users who wanted 64 bit forcing them to buy XP again instead of letting them use their 32 bit keys on 64.

Unless you want to surpass the 4GB limit or you have applications that's require RAM over the limit or are 64 bit only it's not worth it.

[colormebad]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

Problem with windows xp 64, is that it only came with sp2 only....I have good copy's of 64 ' but it wouldnt install on my asus board...Would always crash' but works perfect on any other system that had xp on it before..

[Topcat]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

^
x64 never got a SP3, it just got a bunch of updates after that. it was modeled after server 2003, and followed a similar update path. It also never got that retarded genuine advantage notification that you always had to be careful to uncheck on winxp32....

I run XP x64 on several machines.....no probs, sees the buttload of RAM these machines have, and I have no plans to downgrade to 7..... win8? Forget that!

[colormebad]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

^
x64 never got a SP3, it just got a bunch of updates after that. it was modeled after server 2003, and followed a similar update path. It also never got that retarded genuine advantage notification that you always had to be careful to uncheck on winxp32....

I run XP x64 on several machines.....no probs, sees the buttload of RAM these machines have, and I have no plans to downgrade to 7..... win8? Forget that!

XP x64 running ok with 12-16 gigs of ram ok ? I started to install it on another 64bit system but didnt know how well it would work with more ram..And a I7 processor...

[shovenose]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

Windows 7 can better utilize multi-core CPUs and a lot of RAM than old XP can...
And it's shiny.
And performance with 7 surpasses performance on XP in some cases.

[c_hegge]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

^
Better performance in 7?

Unless you have a Hex-core with 8GB of RAM

[shovenose]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

^
Better performance in 7?

Unless you have a Hex-core with 8GB of RAM

or a core i5 with 6GB RAM

[severach]

Re: Win XP or Win 7 ?

Windows 7 x86 handles the same amount of RAM as Windows XP x86 unless you have the "RAM Sperre" PAE RAM patch. Without cheating the ability to handle RAM is the same. Windows 7 offers Superfetch which I turn off ASAP.

The only core management improvement I've seen in Windows 7 is that it doesn't assign affinity to the HT cores until the real cores are getting full. This allows the non HT cores to clock faster.

Anandtech: Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger
Homework: How Turbo Mode Works

Other than that the core handling is too similar to say one is better than another.

x64 is a slug. The speed you gain from the disk cache is more than lost in x86 emulation. It will be better someday but we're a long ways off from that.

The shiny part is why everyone heaps praise on Windows 7 where it's not due. If it looks good no one cares that it is slower.