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Building new system, suggestions? Vista or not?

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - Building new system, suggestions? Vista or not?

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Go to vista on new rig, or stick with XP?




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truromeo4juliet   02-11-2007 at 09:06:18 PM

I filed my refund last night online and am expecting to get a decent amount back for 1337 computer gearz :) I'm a computer tech and have tons of leftover parts from random projects over the months... so some of the parts necessary to make a working computer I already have (I just need it to work for now... I'll concentrate on speed later)

Current Rig:
Antec Super LANBoy Case
Antec SmartPower 450 PSU
DFI LANParty UT nF3 250Gb Motherboard
AMD Athlon64 3200+ Newcastle
3 x 512MB Kingston ValueRAM
74GB Western Digital Raptor (8MB Cache) (O/S, Apps, Games)
160GB Hitachi SATA drive (Data Storage)
eVGA GeForce 7600GS AGP video card
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound card
Sony DVDRW DRU-710A
2 x 18.3" Gateway FPD1830 Flat-Panel monitors (have 3, all new inverters)

Case: ThermalTake Armor (room for G80 / R600) $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811133154

Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610W Retail $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703005

Motherboard: eVGA 680i SLI Retail (with manual) $249
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813188009

Processor: 3.4GHz P4 LGA775 w/ HT (I already have this)
will get Intel C2D E6600 Retail later on
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115003 $320

RAM: 4 x 512MB PC4200 Samsung RAM (I already have this)
(will get better ram later on...)

Hard Drive: 74GB Raptor for O/S, Apps, and Games (I Already have this)
(will get a Raptor 150X later on for just games)
160GB Hitachi SATA Drive for just data storage (I already have this)
(Will get an external backup as well; have the drive, need the enclosure)

Video Card: ATi X600 Pro 128MB (I already have this)
(waiting for R600 public release and cheaper G80's)

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (I already have this)
(will get an X-Fi F4t4L1Ty later on... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6829102189 $180)

Optical Drive: Sony DVDRW DRU-710A (I already have this)

Monitors: 3 x 18.3" Gateway FPD1830's (I already have these)
on a Matrox TripleHead2Go http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail. [...] bwbfroogle $270

Total cost ~$600 + Shipping - Rebates (evens out)... (before buying all the FASTER parts I don't have yet, and the matrox triplehead2go)

I will build this with the parts above (from what I already have)... wait a payday, order my C2D, wait a payday, order my graphics card (eVGA step-up program... thinking 8800GTS first, then GTX stepup)... wait a payday, order the MatroxTripleHead2Go, Wait a payday, order the sound card... wait a payday, order the RAM

My main question is this:
Should I stick with Windows XP, or jump to Vista?

As a tech, I advise people not to put vista on an existing computer... especially if it's for a business...

As a consumer, I didn't want to put Vista on my existing machine because I didn't want to experience the drop in performance...

But now that I'm building a new machine, which will retire my current computer into game-server status (i have tons of spare parts to put it back into working order), I'm wondering if I should go to Vista or not...

I suppose my other option would be to take one of my 80GB harddrives and partition it into 2 x 40GB sections, load XP on one partition, load Vista on the other partition... will they play well with each other?

Also, any suggestions to decrease cost at a reasonable performance level? mainly in the processor / video card areas...

Thanks for reading, and the advice! :cheers: - Mark

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cutthroat   02-11-2007 at 09:28:53 PM
- 0 +

I'd go with dual boot, that way you can play around with Vista and get used to it, while you still have XP in case something doesn't work correctly. So far there have been some driver troubles with Vista, many features are not working on the Nvidia graphics Vista drivers, like SLI and DX10. I don't know for example if you would have any trouble getting 3 monitors to work with Vista yet?

Also, you should not put different OS's on the same drive but different partitions, you should use seperate physical drives.

Reply to cutthroat
truromeo4juliet   02-11-2007 at 09:33:03 PM
- 0 +

Quote :

I don't know for example if you would have any trouble getting 3 monitors to work with Vista yet?


the Matrox TH2G will appear to the O/S as a single 3840x1024 monitor... that hopefully doesn't change with vista :D

Quote :

Also, you should not put different OS's on the same drive but different partitions, you should use seperate physical drives.


is there an advantage to this? I have maybe 4 x 80GB HDD's laying around as paperweights, I could do it, but is it worth the extra power consumption?

Reply to truromeo4juliet
akhilles   02-11-2007 at 09:39:16 PM
- 0 +

Case: check
Power Supply: check
Motherboard: check
Processor: check
RAM: ?
Hard Drive: check
Video Card: check
Sound Card: check
Optical Drive: check
Monitors: check
We're go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Hold on!

Well, if you manage to install this:

4 x 512MB PC4200 Samsung RAM

on this & make them work successfully w/o modding:

eVGA 680i SLI

I'd love to see a youtube of this pc running. ;) Don't forget to put on some deafening music. lol. Low quality video preferred.

If you plan on installing only legit software on vista, go ahead. Otherwise, you should investigate it before making the jump. Rumor has it that vista will remove non-legit software.

Reply to akhilles
Nova46   02-11-2007 at 09:44:02 PM
- 0 +

Quote :

I'd go with dual boot, that way you can play around with Vista and get used to it, while you still have XP in case something doesn't work correctly. So far there have been some driver troubles with Vista, many features are not working on the Nvidia graphics Vista drivers, like SLI and DX10. I don't know for example if you would have any trouble getting 3 monitors to work with Vista yet?

Also, you should not put different OS's on the same drive but different partitions, you should use seperate physical drives.


That's exactly what I was going to say. That would be the smartest thing to do now. I have Windows XP as my main OS on my C drive, and Windows Vista RC1 on my other F drive, will buy the full RTM Vista later and have it on the F drive. I'm still going to keep it on dual boot until I am positive I'm ready to move to Vista as my main OS.

Reply to Nova46
cutthroat   02-11-2007 at 09:58:41 PM
- 0 +

You should not install two or more OS's on the same physical hard drive because they share something (can't remember what) that they shouldn't. you may end up with corrupted OS's. Anyway, I'm just repeating warnings I have heard before, you will need to do some research to find out exactly why that is.

Reply to cutthroat
truromeo4juliet   02-11-2007 at 10:08:39 PM
- 0 +

Quote :

You should not install two or more OS's on the same physical hard drive because they share something (can't remember what) that they shouldn't. you may end up with corrupted OS's. Anyway, I'm just repeating warnings I have heard before, you will need to do some research to find out exactly why that is.



interesting... i'll keep that in mind :thumbs up: thanks for the help so far, looks like dual-boot is the way for now...

Reply to truromeo4juliet
truromeo4juliet   02-11-2007 at 10:09:28 PM
- 0 +

Quote :


Well, if you manage to install this:

4 x 512MB PC4200 Samsung RAM

on this & make them work successfully w/o modding:

eVGA 680i SLI

I'd love to see a youtube of this pc running. ;) Don't forget to put on some deafening music. lol. Low quality video preferred.



are you speculating that this RAM won't work properly out of the... drawer it's being stored in? why is that?

Reply to truromeo4juliet
akhilles   02-12-2007 at 12:41:07 AM
- 0 +

You don't say whether it's ddr or ddr2. I assume it's ddr.

Reply to akhilles
skyguy   02-12-2007 at 01:06:10 AM
- 0 +

1) DDR won't run on your new mobo. If it's DDR2, then you're fine

2) Put Vista on a separate physical hard drive, not on the same one....bad move there.

3) [hijack] Lemme know how the TH2G works, I'm dying to get my 3 monitors back up and running, otherwise I gotta get a new SLI mobo and run 2 cards in non-SLI :( [/hijack]

Reply to skyguy
truromeo4juliet   02-12-2007 at 01:48:01 AM
- 0 +

Quote :

1) DDR won't run on your new mobo. If it's DDR2, then you're fine


Sorry, failed to mention it's PC2-4200 (DDR2) :)

Quote :

2) Put Vista on a separate physical hard drive, not on the same one....bad move there.


Noted! but can someone explain why this is? :(

Quote :

3) [hijack] Lemme know how the TH2G works, I'm dying to get my 3 monitors back up and running, otherwise I gotta get a new SLI mobo and run 2 cards in non-SLI :( [/hijack]


roger that :thumbs up:

Reply to truromeo4juliet
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