New i7 computer - xp64 or win7(64) ?

[synikk]

Hello,
ive been going insane with research on this topic for the past few days and i am still not really sure what to do. I'm planning on getting a new gaming pc soon and i want to know what os would run the best... these are its primary specs i7 920 2.66ghz - 6gb ddr3 - ati msi 5670 1gbddr5 - 750watt psu.

first off, i like xp. i much prefer the way its mixer controls are set up for audio production and its file storage paths make more sense to me. i also understand that xp64 runs overall faster than win7 in most all applications, but then again most of the charts ive seen on this werent for brand new computers and were more aimed at what the casual user would expect from win7 vs xp. so, i wonder if a higher end computers preformance in windows7 would have been better than in xp..

Another concern however is that xp(64bit) does not support dx10-11, and isn't likely to. This makes having a nice high end dx11video card sorta useless, which sucks.. although this card im getting isnt the top of the line or anything.

Yet another concern is xp games. I am doubtful they will run in the so called windows7 xpmode. Ive done some research on this and found that it is not really designed for graphics intensive compatibility. XPmode is simply an emulated environment which runs extremely slow compared to what preformance you would get in pure xp. It is more made for light buisness software, correct me if im wrong?

so my concerns are :

a.) want the fastest os.
b.) want to play xp games. (at their fullest capability)
c.) want to be able to play future games. (at their fullest capability)

any opinions or ideas are greatly appreciated! i am stumped. lol. i feel like i am going to want to have BOTH os's lol. One for older XP games/apps and one for new W7 ones. That would be an ugly waste of money to have to pay for 2 operating systems though, i currently only possess a 32bit copy of xp. Can i use my 32bit xp key on a 64 bit xp install? That would be nice, then i wouldnt have to buy the whole new os.. or just, win7...eventually. does windows7 utilize quad cores better than xp and give better preformance? i just couldnt really find any of this information anywhere.

 

[treefrog07]

I'm triple-booting XPx86, XPx64, and Win7x64 (yes, they're all legal - I'd rather pay than get trojans, etc.) on my gaming machine to do what you are seeking. I've been testing and benchmarking to compare the result in each system since Win7 RC1 came out last year. The x64 versions' results are slightly less than the x86 versions (attributable to the WOW in x64 to run x86 software). But I can't see the difference in the games.

When I started testing, I had to have XPx86 to run my HDD partitioning software. A year later, there are at least two of those that run in x64 OSes.

I've tried FarCry2, Borderlands, H.A.W.X, Fallout3,and Crysis, all the MS-CFS, and FS9 and FSX - they all ran fine is XPx86, XPx64, and Win7x64 - straight Win7, not XP mode. I think Win7x64 will do all the games I want, and it does have DirectX10 and 10.1. Ultimately, I will be running Win7x64 exclusively on that machine.

My gaming machine is:
DFI-LP-UT-X48-T3RS, BIOS 1224 beta,
E8600@4.0GHz,
AC Freezer 7 Pro,
G.Skill DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) 2GBx2,
2 Sapphire 100259L (4870 - 512MB) in crossfire,
HDD: 2 WD5000YS (RAID 1 WinXPx86),
HDD: WD50000ABYS (WinXP64sp2),
HDD: WD50000ABYS (Win7x64ultimate),
UltraX3 1kw,
Plextor 716A (IDE),
CM690,
Samsung 22233RZ

Can't tell whether or not you can use an XPx84 key on a n XPx64 install (would suspect not).
It's really the program software that maximizes the CPU cores/threads, not exclusively the OS; most games and other programs are for 32-bit OSes and HW. Which makes sense because the 64-bit OSes have only become popular fairly recently. I would think that the next generation games will have optimization for x64 systems.

Maybe this will help answer some of your questions.

 

[synikk]

hmm thanks alot. that sheds a bit of light on some dark areas for me and gives some ideas. ive decided to just get win7 ultimate 64 initially but intend to get xp pro 64 as well eventually.. then ill be doing a bunch of testing between the two of my own xD lol cant wait cheers

 

[huron]

Is there something in Ultimate that you need? I'd strongly suggest that you look at the feature set and decide if you will actually use those few features. Most are more than OK with Win7 Home x64 or the Pro version.

 

[kaa0653]

Good chart listing features of the different Windows 7 editions here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

Personally I have made a full switch to 7 and I see no reason to move back. XP is great and very stable but MS actually did a great job with 7.

In your case I would just dual boot xp 32 bit and 7. I did this from 7 beta until a couple of months ago. The only reason I can see for purchasing XP 64 bit is if you have some application that would have very large gains in performance on a 64 bit OS and cannot run on 7.

As far as the games go, if you want to play current/future games to the fullest capability then you need the latest OS.

 

[ptolomy_was_right]

For the spec you have, Win 7x64 (Ultimate no really necessary like huron says, Home Prem should be fine) is no barrier and I think you'll grow to prefer it very quickly. XP? To my mind is just SO OLD now, and will only get older... it will be less and less supported as new software ad hardware emerges... and we know how fast technology is moving. I have a modest rig here on my laptop (4GB ddr2 667 - 1.7GHz Core 2 Duo - Intel GMA X3100) - but I'm running Win7 Ultimate 64-bit very sweet (and dual-booting with Mac OSX 10.5.7). I'm not pushing it with games, but I push it with media apps (video/audio conversion/extraction/compression, Photoshopping maybe 20 uncompressed imaged at a time, also virtual studio work). Looking towards the future, I'd go for 7 x64

 

[joshtemplin3]

Just get a Mac

 

[gamerk316]

No reason to touch XP64; driver support was and is lacking on it. In fact, tehre is very little reason NOT to get Win7 64 in all cases at this point...

 

[rndmavis]

I could never imagine going back to XP on my machine. That would give me nightmares. It's harder to navigate at first, but it has some neat search functions that work much better than XP if you need to search for a certain control panel section etc.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Win 7 64 bit without question is the way to proceed!

 

[subh22]

win 7 64 bit is good