Which OS for new GeForce GTX 295

That GTX 295 is soooooo much more than you need at 1680x1050....do you not want to save a little money? go with the 4890 or gtx 275....or gtx 285....you could even go with two 4770's in crossfire.....but a 295 is way more than you need...

orly...his post confused me i figured they ran out of stock again....


XP 64 bit isn't that bad i haven't had any problems gaming so far...

I've been using Vista SP1 x64 for the past year or so, and it has worked out alright for me. I've had issues with some older games running or not; but that's usually much older games than Sims2 generation. Check my sig for my current system. I have the RAM, so I like to be able to use it.

Realize a GTX 295 will eat up around 1.8GB of your memory map. Toss in another 200-500MB for other odd system devices, and you're using up to 2.3GB out of the 4GB that XP 32bit can handle. That will leave XP thinking it only has 1.7GB+ of ram. Granted, XP is much less memory hungry than Vista is in either incarnation; but 1.7GB is approaching the lower rim of what you want these days.

If you stick with XP 32bit, which yes, is for the most part the best gaming OS, make SURE you disable that integrated Radeon and wipe its drivers from the system. That's yet another 128MB and then some allocated to that little guy too.

Another consideration: while you will be fully able to dual boot linux and either Vista or XP, XP is much cleaner as far as dual booting goes, historically. If XP is installed first, and then linux, linux inserts itself neatly beneath / in replacement of XP's bootloader. Vista tries to own your system. While it is still possible to dual-boot, Vista is just uglier at it. I have limited experience in that regard though, and am fully unwilling to bother.

Either way you go, best of luck, hope I was any help at all.

P.S. - About the RAM issue again, there's a reason most systems ship with 4GB+ of memory today, both laptops and desktops. The issue is one of balance. A system with 1.8GB of video memory on a card that deserves that much will not be equally, happily paired with a system that only has 1.8GB of RAM. This is why people are flocking to Vista x64.

Sure, XP x64 can be done. If you feel minorly adventurous, go right ahead. You will occasionally run into a program that doesn't work right, or a component that doesn't have a XP64 driver. iTunes, for example, I had to modify the installer using a few programs to get it to install. It still had very flaky iPod support then too. It wasn't exceptionally hard, but it did require patience and careful following of directions.

They have already confirmed that this is not going to happen. I personally would wait until windows 7 is publically released if you are going to be using a Windows OS. I have been testing it on my spare PC and it runs every single game I have in my collection from the origional sims to crysis.
64-bit versions will be available on release so it might be worth holding off for a few months as if you upgrade now you may also want to upgrade when it comes out which is a huge waste of money!
8GB of RAM is overkill btw.

I had downloaded the Windows 7 RC, but never got around to installing it on my old machine...as I only used my windows partition for games, would you recommend temporarily trying the Windows 7 RC for gaming until the final 64bit versions are available?

I use Linux for my main OS and windows for gaming only

right on...I'll do that tonight

thanks