The Great Fandango Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 Oh dear, oh dear... My BRAND NEW gaming PC which I built has just died a death - it seems to be complete hard disk failure. Luckily for me there wasn't too much work on the machine, just loads of games installed. (has anyone tried playing 'Crysis'?!?) I'm off to the shop tomorrow to complain and get the hard drive replaced. Those into gaming can see it was a top spec machine: - AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core Processor - Gaming grade SLI Motherboard - 2x 500Gb Hard Drives - 3Gb RAM - 2x nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2 (1Gb) Graphics Cards - Linksys Wireless Card - Logitech G15 Keyboard - Logitech MX Revolution Mouse - Bose 'Companion 5' Speakers - Samsung 22 inch widescreen monitor ... but it ran Windows XP. OK! I realise loads of people still advise to avoid Windows Vista but I've decided it's the way forward. Since the hard disk is coming out I thought that perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to install Vista. There are so many different versions. 32 bit, 64bit, home premium, home premium upgrade, ultimate, ultimate upgrade. I'm confused as hell! Can someone please advise. What do I need to buy for a top spec gaming/home office machine? Quote
DavidR Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 Just a suggestion . . . .Why not check first how many of your games will work under Vista . . . . The are more than enough Vista problems with simple office apps let alone games written probably for XP. Quote
thebutler Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 Slightly off the original topic, but if you've got 2 identical and disks and hardware RAID, might be worth mirroring them next time... Most usefull Vista is home premuim. I'd avoid 64bit, unless you have an application that requires it, the driver support is not always there. I'd love to say stick to XP, but you're only delaying the inevitable. I've recenlty started using Vista on my new laptop, but have to say I prefer XP :-( HTH Steve Quote
dombanks Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 been using vista on my desktops for over a year, i have had no problems with applicatons (office photoshop hp scanner/copier/printer software, nero etc) or drivers running or connected hardware for that matter. I expected issues with the harware connected as some of the machines are besopke made and have very basic labview control programs. others machines are made by international sciencetific harware companies and has very complicated software. one of the machines is home basic the other is home premium so not even the business versions. i prefere home premium and like some of the MacOS X copied wizzy bit. it is a good idea to check your games for compatibility but in my experience software that ran fine on xp seems to run ok on vista perhaps i've been lucky. the other way to view it is an excuse to buy new ones. happydays etd: i think the 64 bit version is designed for 64bit processors my two desktops are normal cor 2 duo things and run the 32bit version) Quote
combatsapph Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 Two problems with that machine (being a "top grade gaming machine") :- AMD - beaten hands down by Intel C2Q processors. 3gb ram - how's that set up? 3x1gb, 2x1gb + 2x512mb? No mention of what it's overclock is? Where are the Raptor or SSD's? As for Vista - been running it since RC1 beta testing as my main machine - I've not found a single modern game that wont run under Vista and as of now, the performance difference is virtually zero between it and XP. Go for Vista x64 and upgrade to a minimum of 4gb. other than the above points, nice system :-) etd: i think the 64 bit version is designed for 64bit processors my two desktops are normal cor 2 duo things and run the 32bit version) C2D's (and C2Q's) are 64bit processors :-) Quote
thebutler Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 etd: i think the 64 bit version is designed for 64bit processors my two desktops are normal cor 2 duo things and run the 32bit version) Core 2 Duo's are 64 bit processors but happily run 32bit OS's. Best to stick with 32 bit unless you have a specific requirment. In my work life my team supports over 1600 windows servers, and of these less than 50 are 64bit. We run all manner of stuff, but unless you need to access large (and I mean large) amounts of memory, there's really not much benefit. Cheers, Steve Quote
PeP Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 I built my gaming system to play DX10 games and use Home premium 64 bit and the only thing I've found that didn't work is a set of headphones.It's about 18 months old now. Every game and piece of software I've come across works ok. Spec is : E6600, Nvidia 8800gts, Raid 0 (stripe), 4 gb ram. Quote
dombanks Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 are they? didnt know, more to the point didnt think they were, i knew the server in my last job were xeon's and (baring the amd stuff) thought that these were the 64 bit ones? oh well live and learn and all. whatever they are i have 4gb of ram and can run photoshop, remote desktop, word, power point, outlook, several web windows, mediaplayer, napster, some little photo analysis thing, a load of the wiget things and all the other gubbins that sits in the background absolutly fine with no hitches Quote
combatsapph Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 Current AMD's are 64 bit as well (and have been for a few years). Also opterons, cell, G5 etc Quote
gee_fin Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 I've been warned off 64bit Vista like the plague. I run 32bit and that was enough of a ballache getting old software and existing peripherals to work (and still isn't 100%). Vista is definetly better than XP, but it takes a while to get it working right... the reason behind being warned off 64bit Vista was that even less drivers are available and subsequently even less works. Seems silly, buy this super-fast 64bit Core2Duo2 laptop with masses of memory, but then can't utilise it all fully because nothing will work if you switch to 64bit Vista! Quote
neilb Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Just a word of warning if you raid 0 or stripe your disks if any of the drives fail you will loose all the data Quote
The Great Fandango Posted April 24, 2008 Author Posted April 24, 2008 Thanks for all the advice guys, the computer's now in with the shop... They're recovering my important data, replacing the drive, adding an additional 1Gb and installing Windows Vista Home Premium. Just goes to show how blimin' complicated Microsoft like things to be. Quote
PeP Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Just a word of warning if you raid 0 or stripe your disks if any of the drives fail you will loose all the data Yep I also have 2 more drives in it, one for storage and another for backup. Quote
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