Is XP 64-bit worth the extra memory and money?

Well, I see nothing but mixed reviews for this, including in this forum. Screw it, I am buying it. I will just load it onto a seperate hard drive and see what happens. If I have any issues I will likely be back. There is no chance of Vista for me. My laptop runs with Vista, headaches... By the way, I wish I'd have known of this site a couple years ago. This is great!

Hi Zoron;
First, how does Vista run with SLI? I have researched this thoroughly and ofcourse, there will always be mixed opinions, but the majority of what I have seen in reviews have been negative. Granted, they are mostly older reviews and rarely specifics on what exactly the problem could be aside from their OS. Too much frustration out there! That could be expected coming from someone in unfamiliar territory... including myself when it comes to Vista. I will consider it, but what kind of impact does DX10 have during gameplay in comparison to DX9 with XP? And ofcourse, are there any specific reasons you would prefer Vista over XP?

The notebook is HP Pavilion 2745se. I got it for general use in travels and work, not for gaming or any media ventures.(That is what my 55-inch LCD is for

I know exactly what you mean about the crapware. I got rid of it all! I was wondering at first what I payed for, software trials and junkfunk or the actual notebook.

At first, I did not like the automation as far as error fixes and the Windows updates. Being that this was my first Vista experience it took a few to get accustomed. However, I am somewhat familiar with it now and it does have alot of handy features, but it seems a bit unstable compared to XP as far as CPU/memory utilization when running general Word/Powerpoint documents with Adobe, Paint, and some other work related software running at once.

Granted the junk under the trunk of this thing isn't topnotch, but it should be sufficient enough to run most of the above named programs at once. Here are a few specs for the notebook:

AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 TL-60 @ 2.0 ghz
Stock memory 3.00 gb
And a whopping 2.5 on the u-suck-meter (experience index) because of the outstanding graphics...(choke,choke)

Well, I think you have a good point there. Xp is nearing the end of its life cycle. I hadn't considered that, and if the wrinkles haven't been ironed out completely yet; it is improbable they ever will be... regarding XP. I think I was clinging to my comfort zone; however, great point and thanks for the tips. Vista 64 it is. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

Just go ahead and right click on your 'My Computer' icon. Got to properties, then system info. It should give you the details there.

No, it won't say 32-bit... I might say 64-bit if you're running 64-bit... but not knowing what the system properties page looks like in XP-64, I'm not sure. One thing that is a virtual guarantee: if you bought your system from a big name OEM (Dell, HP, Acer, etc), you most likely have 32-bit XP. Very few companies supported XP-64 and it was usually an optional choice. So, unless you specifically asked for XP-64, you most likely have XP-32.

(You'd also know if you've ever updated drivers. IF you had XP-64, then that requires a 64-bit driver download... and if you've downloaded and installed drivers, it would tell you right away if you downloaded the wrong driver for your OS)