32 or 64 for vista or xp

[Rowdysattva]

I am upgrading to a new system and wondering if there is a preference for 32 or 64 and vista or xp for 5 boxing on one pc.

I know there is a cap of 4 gig with the 32 bit but i heard that although the 64 bit can make use of much more memory it take a bit more as well. I have also heard that vista takes a bit more horse power in general too.

I will have 4 gb of memory and 512 up to 1 gb memory on my video card. So without the 64 bit i would lose 512 to 1 gb memory off the card. Is that last bit critical to run 5 on one pc? Does vista suck so much more juice that i need more memory?

:huh:

[HPAVC]

One word, TRIAL. Do the vista trial and see how it works out. At least you will have some knowledge of how your gear is going to pan out drivers wise. Obviously its a spec issue as well, people need to know what video card your using and so forth for these types of things. But mileage varies intensely on these things. Not a lot of hardware is needed to spec out, but video (keyclone pip?), separated ./wow hard drive, castrating vista's services (likely take longer than any other step)

[Griznah]

I'm running vista64 on my rig, and I'm happy with it.
Business Ultimate, 8gig ram, 3,6GHz Core2Duo.

[Otlecs]

Having run Vista64 for around 3 months, I'd need a really compelling reason to NOT go with it in the future. It's stable, well supported and I've not had a single moment's regret since I installed it.

[Anahka]

Agreed. Vista 64.

Check beforehand if your hardware/drivers will agree though.

[Coltimar]

The only flavor of Vista that has worked for me is x64. All the others are rubbish. I rather enjoy ultimate as well.

[-silencer-]

Having run Vista64 for around 3 months, I'd need a really compelling reason to NOT go with it in the future. It's stable, well supported and I've not had a single moment's regret since I installed it.
Listen to this.

The majority of those who complain about Vista64 are those who used it back before vendors were supporting it with new drivers for their hardware, or those who buy into elitist bullshit ads starring two douchebags on TV (hi mac, hi pc).

[pinotnoir]

Vista 64 here.. It's nice. 8gig of ram ftw

[Rowdysattva]

Just wanted to drop a note and say thanks for your perspectives and help.

I think i will try to go with Vista 64.

As you can probably tell i am not that savvy myself about much of this stuff. I am learning bit by bit and i have a friend who is more knowledge-able (but not about wow or boxing--just computers and networks) who will be helping me get a handle on everything and building the machine itself.

[ObesAU]

My tips for vista64

Windows on Windows 32 (wow32) only allows 4gig for all the 32 bit apps. So why bother with more then 4 gig ?

Well anything not 32 bits can go sit above 4gig ie. random 64bit windows utils etc etc, As can file system cache. Which you can increase
eg. fsutil set memoryusage 2
So 6G will give slightly more memory to your wow sessions. And a big cache should give better performance.

Also use multiple hard drive and junctions/symlinks. But thats not really related to OS choice.