Core 2 Duo and XP/Vista

[Bovinicus]

Do I need a particular iteration of Vista or XP to recognize both cores in a C2D processor? I plan on building a new system soon and that includes a C2D processor. I know XP home only support one CPU, but does that matter in this case?

What about Vista Basic vs. Premium?

Also, is there any reason to get a more expensive verson of Vista than Basic?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Zugzwang152]

You can use any version of Windows XP or Vista. The limitation is on the number of physical processors, not cores.

See below quote from Microsoft:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Windows XP Home are not affected by this policy as they are licensed per installation and not per processor. Windows XP Professional can support up to two processors regardless of the number of cores on the processor. Microsoft Windows XP Home supports one processor.

http://www.microsoft.com/licen...hlights/multicore.mspx

 

[Bovinicus]

Sweet, I was hoping that is the case.

 

[soonerproud]

If you decide to get Vista, avoid Home Basic as it is only slightly cheaper than Home Premium. ($40 for retail and $30 for oem.) You will miss out on a lot of great extras like the aero interface and media center. Aero does not affect performance because the desktop is drawn by the GPU instead of the CPU. Vista disables Aero if you play a game or use 3D intensive applications. This means there will be no performance hit using these applications whatsoever.

 

[Bovinicus]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
If you decide to get Vista, avoid Home Basic as it is only slightly cheaper than Home Premium. ($40 for retail and $30 for oem.) You will miss out on a lot of great extras like the aero interface and media center. Aero does not affect performance because the desktop is drawn by the GPU instead of the CPU. Vista disables Aero if you play a game or use 3D intensive applications. This means there will be no performance hit using these applications whatsoever.

I actually followed this up by reading a long review on Vista which gave me the basic breakdown of what each package consists of. Now my question is whether or not I want to go 64-bit so I can reap the benefits in the future, or start 32-bit and upgrade as I am able to take advantage via software companies optimizations and 4GB of memory or more.

 

[t0mn8r]

Go 32 bit for now IMO as you will avoid driver compatibility issues.

 

[Nothinman]

Now my question is whether or not I want to go 64-bit so I can reap the benefits in the future, or start 32-bit and upgrade as I am able to take advantage via software companies optimizations and 4GB of memory or more.

There is no 32->64-bit upgrade, you'll have to format and reinstall everything when you decide to switch.

 

[Bovinicus]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Now my question is whether or not I want to go 64-bit so I can reap the benefits in the future, or start 32-bit and upgrade as I am able to take advantage via software companies optimizations and 4GB of memory or more.

There is no 32->64-bit upgrade, you'll have to format and reinstall everything when you decide to switch.

Gotcha. Oh well, I think I'll just stay 32-bit for the time being. It is already unlike me to go Vista so early. Hell, I still have 2000 Pro on the computer I'm posting from. I will setup different partitions so that the format/reinstall will be less painful. Most likely I wouldn't upgrade anyway. I don't think I've ever upgraded an OS, even though I sometimes say I might, heh.