[Newbie96]

Hi,

I am building a new gaming system and are stumped as what OS to use, Win XP PRO 64 bit or Vista 64 bit? Any preferences? Thanks

[redaxe]

I'd use neither one at this time.

Go for the 32bit XP Pro and save your money for later.

It will take Vista a couple of years to get ironed out, with regard to driver and software support, so you'd be best off waiting on that too.

[Newbie96]

Hi,

Would I still see the speed and features of the 64 bit hardware while using a 32 bit OS?

[redaxe]

Not all of it, but the problem with 64 bit operating systems from Microsoft is that it doesn't have a good enough support for all of the features on offer. Most of the programs you'd be using would be running in 32bit mode anyway, so your gain would be nonexistant, even could make your computer run slower than it should.

Driver support for it is also very poor, so you'd be wasting your money. But if you absolutely insist on using the 64bit OS, then go for XP Pro, as it's been around longer and should have much better support.

[Newbie96]

So if I went with a 32 bit OS I would still see some good speed out of a AM2 6400+ and 4 gig of ram?

[redaxe]

4 GB of RAM would not work properly, since 32bit only makes allowance for 3GB. But the speed would be good regardless. The RAM would not be the bottleneck here, some other feature in your setup would take that mantle, though the system is probably sturdy enough to play anything without any hickups anyway.

[Newbie96]

Ok Thanks