Tyan i5000PW and Windows Vista Ultimate 64

You could try the Vista upgrade advisor Vista Upgrade Advisor Download.

I installed Vista 64 Ultimate on a new build but went back to XP because Vista locked it up too frequently. However since then I found out I had a loose SATA cable to my bootup RAID0 array  . Think I'll keep XP and dual-boot Vista on another drive, because there are some issues with Vista (for example, apparently it doesn't like a single PCI card - either 0 or 2 OK but not just one). In particular a lot of games either won't work (NWN for example) or require patching, if that is important to you. I suggest you search the forums here for relevant upgrade advice and issues.

Personally I really like Vista's GUI with Aero, but it takes some getting used to. Be prepared to RTFM or at least the help files  . Right now I'd sum up my experience with it as a lot of glamour, not too much substance.

hey fazers,

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately, running the Vista Upgrade Advisor is not an option for me since I'm talking about a system I am considering to purchase. Also, games are not a priority in such a system. It'll function as a Digital Content workstation, mostly 3D.

Due to the way Intel deals with memory management, it would be important to run Vista Ultimate 64 instead of XP64 to minimize the problem with different cores sharing the same piece of memory and causing a slow down.

So... do you actually have this motherboard or were you talking about your experience with Vista in general?

Thanks,

Sorry, no I don't have the Tyan mobo - I have an eVGA 680i board. I assumed you already had the mobo since you mentioned the manual, didn't realize you probably DLed the online version beforehand.

You tried Googling your mobo and Vista 64, right? Since my rig is for gaming, I got by with just lurking in eVGA's forums to discover problems & issues but found nothing significant to counter the favorable reviews - a simple BIOS reflash was all that I needed before installing Vista. Finding decent drivers for some components (X-Fi sound card in particiular) is more problematic.

FWIW, as for memory management, the only app I've checked in both Vista and 32-bit XP is DVDShrink but I can tell you Vista's task manager shows a single instance of DVDShrink having 15 threads spread out over all 4 cores in my QX6700 and loading them about equally when recoding/compressing video, whereas XP task manager shows marked differences in at least one core being fairly idle. Unfortuately I didn't run Vista long enough to actually compare times with DVDShrink running under it and XP. Whether Vista appears to run it better due to NUMA support or just better thread management I couldn't say, but having 768MB of videocard memory causes 32-bit XP to only sees 2.75GB of main memory whereas Vista 64 sees all 4GB.

Thanks, fazers,

yeah I did my share of googling about the subject but never found anything solid.

Memory management will be critical for me cause I'll have two quad-Xeon for a total of 8 cores and 2x4Gb of fully buffered memory...

anybody else has any input on this????

Have you checked out Supermicro? Thye offer quad core dual socket compatible boards, like the X7DA3 with the Greencreek chipset and the X7DB3 with the Blackford chipset. It seems as though both Tyan or Supermicro have not evaluated their boards with Vista or just have not updated the sites yet.

Good luck!

Hey chunkymonster,

Thanks for your input! The X7DA3 could become a 2nd option. The thing about the Tyan board is that it supports 64 Gb (my goal throughout the year) and 2xPCI-E 16 (2x8 electrical), which would be more balanced than the 1x16 (16 electrical) + 1x16 (4 electrical). And they're on the same price range...

Thanks again,