Dual-Booting for more FPS

[Guest]

I'm building a new system, and as I am a student at a university, I have an MSDNAA account, through which I can get Windows 7 and Windows XP, 2 licenses each. So, disregarding price, is it wise to have one computer system with two partitions, one strictly for gaming (no internet, hence no antivirus), and the other for office work, internet with antivirus etc.

Mostly I ask because in my limited wisdom AV overhead is quite taxing on a PC. Ideally I'd love to have 2 Win7 partitions, but would like to see if WinXP can give me another 5-8 fps in Crysis.

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of setup? Is AV overhead really that large (my fav AV suite is avast)? Is WinXP > Win7 if all I'm going to do is boot and play?

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

It's not a real problem with most modern computers. most games won't use more then 2 solid cores so at least 1 is free for AV use. Also with large amounts of RAM in most systems, the extra load a AV may put on the HDD is not a real issue.

It would be wiser to use a virtual machine for random internet crap. and have a light weight AV, games and office utilities on the host.

 

[cmcghee358]

No. AV overhead only affects performance during a scheduled scan. If it begins scanning during Crysis, simply turn it off. Or schedule the scan for when you're in class, when you know you wont be using it.

 

[mrmez]

I've ran dual boot before. It gets tiresome very fast.

Is the extra 5-8 fps really THAT important? Are there other ways you can get that? CPU/GPU overclock or upgrade?

Dual boot is like your teenage girlfriend. Awesome and entertaining at first, but after the novelty wears off its just a PIA

 

[Guest]

Best answer selected by jarek319.