Hi Bill - I toasted my old Athlon XP motherboard a while back, and decided to upgrade while getting it fixed. I went with a dual core Athlon 64x2 4200 system and Windows x64.
I didn't do any research, I just walked into the computer store with my dead PC and walked out with a live one (a VERY live one.) From what I read, the Core II Duo gives more bang for the buck at this time. I'm quite happy with the system I got. There are two sides to the 64 bit coin. One is just getting a 64 bit processor, that can access memory in bigger chunks. The other is running a 64 bit OS on it, which in theory could really scream with 64 bit apps. (I say in theory since few of the apps I use are available in 64 bit versions.) Windows x64 - the 64 bit version of Win Xp Professional - is an interesting beast. You can read my full report on it here: http://markcassino.com/b2evolution/index.php?title=notes_on_migrating_to_windows_xp_x64&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 The long and the short of it: - 32 bit windows (a.k.a. x86 Windows) is limited to 4 gigs of memory max, and usually divides that 2 gigs for apps and 2 gigs for the OS. You _can_ get some apps (like Photoshop) to work with up to 3 gigs. But - when you put 4 gigs of memory in a system with 32 bit windows installed, you suddenly find that the system has to fit your video memory, bios, and other system memory into that 4 gig space. So you can pop 4 gigs of DIMMS in, and still get little more than 3 gigs of available RAM. That's the advantage of Windows x64 - it lets you address a huge amount of memory (but be sure to get a motherboard designed to let you do that.) - x86 windows runs in an emulation mode on Windows x64. It may run slower than a native 32 bit windows install - I haven't been able to do direct head to head comparisons. For something like Photoshop, where you can give the application more memory, any theoretical speed decrease is likely offset by the additional available memory. - The big issue with 64 bit windows is compatibility with drivers. Since x86 Windows is running in an emulation mode on top of x64, 32 bit / x 86 drivers jsut won't work on Windows x64. You also need 64 bit antivirus and backup programs (if you want to make disk images - 32 bit programs can copy your data files just fine.) Epson has 64 bit drivers for the Photo 2200, but otherwise my film scanners and USB wireless adapter would not work under x64. The x64 _does_ support the USB disk standard so my X's Drive II worked fine. I had my old Athlon 2800+ repaired and have it now as a scanning / DVD burning machine. With 1 gigbit lan connections data transfers between machines are just as fast as transfers from an internal ATA 100 IDE drive. But if the Windows x64 was my only machine, I would have been SOL on getting my scanners to work. And while Norton Ghot 9.0 was able to restore my old backups (I only need to pull off the data files) it refuses to run under x64. Other random notes - I also opted for a smaller 10,000 RPM 'Raptor' drive for the main system drive, and a somewhat slower 300 mbs drive for data storage. I'm not sure if the marginal increase in speed from the faster Raptor drive was worth it. I also left a spare EIDE drive on the machine along with a Vantec caddy that allows me to swap in IDE drives for backup. A few years ago I got a regimen of daily backups. One nice thing about the AMD machines is the 'Cool and Quiet' setting and utilty. Enable it in the bios and the machine dynamically down-clocks the processor during idle times and up-clocks it when the demand is high. I switched that on and then overclocked the processor by 15%. Right now, typing this, it is running at less than half of its rated speed and is reporting a temp of 85F (I _did_ get the uber-gamer case with 6 fans and a heacy duty head sink.) If I throw a huge file into Photoshop (like a 6x7 scanned at 3200 dpi upsized by 200%) and then hit it with a major filter the processor ramps up to full throttle, the temp will rise up to ~117, but then drops back when the job is done. It it just ran full throttle all the time the procssor would be running on the hot side - within spec, but still hot. The 'Cool and Quiet' give met the advantages of overclocking when I need it, and none of the probelms when I don't. Anyhow - have fun. - MCC William Robb wrote: > With the iminent introduction of Vista, i am considering building a new > computer based on a 64bit dual core chip. > I am wondering what, if any, advantages/ disadvantages there are to > going with an AMD based computer or an Intel based computer. > Any advice (other than advising a platform change to Mac) would be > appreciated. > Thanks > > William Robb > > > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mark Cassino Photography Kalamazoo www.markcassino.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
