Re: Upgrade to Vista home premium with AMD Athlon 64.

On 10/03/2008 in message <7ecc2101-88b6-4a22-bf24-aaa9b654087a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> conkersack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I have a PC which currently runs XP, it is an Athlon 64 2800+ (1.8GHz)
and has 1 GB RAM. It also has an ATI video card at 64MB which has
trouble running Google Earth (strange tartan pattern effect obscuring
the images).

I basically would like to upgrade this computer to Vista Home Premium
but I am concerned that that the processor may not be able to handle
it.

You should think carefully why you want to "upgrade" to Vista. I tried it on 2 PCs here, one an Athlon 3200+ and one a Core 2 Duo E6600 (both with 2 GB RAM) and it ran 20% slower than XP on both. Vista would not run several apps that I use as well so I went back to XP.

The programs used most would be Office, Photoshop 7, Exact Audio Copy,
Sketchup, Firefox and Windows Movie Maker.

You should check with the manufacturers of the programs if they will run on Vista, you may have to pay for upgrades.

Also, I would upgrade the RAM to 2GB at the same time (the most the
motherboard can handle, according to it's manual), and I would like to
change the video card to something that isn't going to cause problems
with the tartan pattern effect in GE. Can anyone recommend a better
video card? It will have to use an AGPx8 slot. ATI again, or nVidia?
How much memory? What is this noise about DirectX 10 that I don't
understand?

2 GB is a minimum for Vista and I would suggest a video card with a minimum of 128MB (preferably more).

Lastly, when shelling out for the Vista, is there any reason I
shouldn't go for the 64 bit version? Apparently my scanner doesn't
have 64 bit drivers (it;s a cheap Canon) - could I use the 32 bit
drivers or does it not work like that? If not, are there any third
party scanner drivers available?

If you go 64 bit you must use 64 bit drivers so check availability with the hardware manufacturers, I don't think it would give you any advantages.

--
Jeff Gaines Damerham Hampshire UK
I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day.
Tomorrow, isn't looking good either.
.

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