Trying to save a buck while getting what I need

[Silearth 6]

So I have the shiny new computer.

 

It's fast and has the clear side and the glowing LED fans. The front of the case lights up.

 

Yet, here I am with windows XP home sitting on my box and it's not cool. I feel like I'm not living up to my full potential. I've been searching around for windows vista 64 bit. but I don't want to drop another $100.00--at least not so that the wife would notice. The best I can do now, is $69.00 from Office Depot for home premium. But it's the 32 bit version.

 

The stupid thing--and I am kicking myself for this one every day--is that last year, when the wife went bonkers and destroyed my computers, I had a copy of Vista Home Basic sitting on a shelf. I could just go to a website right now, enter my key and microsoft will send me a 64 bit version for a "small fee". Perhaps just shipping and handling.

 

Last year, a girl in the office was looking for a copy of Vista. She wanted to see if she could install it on her computer and perhaps get a key from a Warez site. I told her that there was no need to go that route as I did not see myself getting a new computer for years--just take mine....

 

Wanting to jump onto the 64 bit bandwagon, I downloaded and burned a Ubuntu 8.10 64 bit disk yesterday.(the new burner is FAST!) Still considering how I will do this:

 

Two partitions and a boot manager.....

Slap my PATA drive back in and disable SATA when I want to boot UBUNTU.....

 

Or perhaps I am making too big a deal out of the 64bit thing?

[Schot 407]

Ok well the quick answer... More Memory! (4GB of memory or more)

 

The gap in pricing between 32bit and 64bit has diminished quite a lot and Memory is dirt cheap. Now is certainly a good time to go 64bit.

 

Some reading:

http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/windo...-bit-processors

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-v...ons/64-bit.aspx

[Silearth 6]

Well, I’ve got the Athlon 64 X2 5000 and the 4 gigs of ram.(I spent a little bit more on some gaming ram with faster timings and heat spreaders)

 

The only thing holding me back is the software.

 

Now I have heard that in a 32 bit operating system, the video ram is added to the system ram when tallying up the total ram. Is this right?

 

So my if I put in 3.5 gigs--which seems to be the max that xp home can see in my case—and add a 1 gig video card I would lose a gig of usable ram? Man this is confusing…lol.

 

If I am understanding this right, then it gets more complicated because I bought a board with sideport ram. I only have 128k but one board I was considering has a full gig.

 

Bottom line is that I want…no I need 8 gigs of ram. And no one will stand in my way, mwahhahahaha!

[Yarasa 0]

If you really want a buy vista, wait for the windows 7. It will drop the vista prices down hopefully. Than you could buy your 64bit vista.

[Schot 407]

I think I would agree with Yarasa if you are able to wait Silearth. The 4GB of ram you have now should be able to last you until Windows 7 comes out. Your right about the ram being tallied up Sil which is why you're only seeing 3.5-ish. But even that should do you fine. Personally I went for 8GB because I figured I would need it and in one case I have. For the Sacred 2 Map of Ancaria. I was using about 6GB of RAM while I was working on it in Photoshop. An extremely unique case you can be sure. What you have now should allow you to run two instances of Sacred 2 and I think that is probably the only resource intensive task you would want to perform. However... There will come a time that you will use/need 8GB. Maybe better to wait for DDR3 to come down in price though. Hmm... Hmmm... ^^

 

Release for Windows 7 has been rumored as being First Quarter 2010 and other rumors say it may be sooner. Though I'm not sure that it will drive down the cost of Vista very much. I don't think that Vista's release brought the price of XP down. If it did I think it may have been negligible. I'm not sure on that but I do recall shopping around for quite a long time and never noticing a significant drop in price.

 

Tough call eh.

[Yarasa 0]

...I don't think that Vista's release brought the price of XP down. ...

 

My personal opinion: The reason Xp prices didn't drop, vista wasn't good enough to replace XP on most computers. Vista requires a lot power and people buying mid level computers are still preferring xp. So if Microsoft knows there is still market for it, they will not reduce the price.

[Silearth 6]

...I don't think that Vista's release brought the price of XP down. ...

 

My personal opinion: The reason Xp prices didn't drop, vista wasn't good enough to replace vista on most computers. Vista requires a lot power and people buying mid level computers are still preferring xp. So if Microsoft knows there is still market for it, they will not reduce the price.

 

 

Very good point.