Windows 7

[kityuser]

I run a (32-bit) quad-core 2.50GHz processor with 4GB of fast RAM, so I suppose it should go fairly well anyway. I've had no hardware problems, BTW.
Ray

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

do you run alot of multi-threading apps? otherwise thats one hell of alot of horse power to be eaten up by the "IDLE" process of windoz 8)
and probably in excess of 100W of power, then again you could be a video editing buff for all I know and utilize the full potential of your system, and even if you aren't you are completely within your rights to run whatever system you want


for anyone mentioning a Hackintosh, you'll have to be careful. All I'll say on the matter is go buy a full leopard DVD and some apple stickers. Google Ideneb, I'll say no more........ stick the sticker on your machine and you're off ..........
note : I don't condone copyright infringement or pirating software. I do understand that the Apple ULEA (or whatever its called) has dubious legality and sticking an apple sticker on your machine "may" deem it as Apple hardware....... maybe :wink:


For those about to embark on the Windoz 7 route, I sincerely wish you all the best luck, I have wasted many hours of my (so far short) life mucking with all sorts of computer problems ... from Ataris to Amigas, to suns, to HP Unix machines, to Vaxs , to PCs to MACS... windoz, linux, osx, solaris, dos and so on....... and I'd never wish agro on anyone whatever they choose to use........


my little 2ps worth is that I like to work on the command line, using as many machine cycles as possible to execute the tasks I want the CPU to do rather than wasting its time drawing pretty eye candy

right or wrong I'm sure that unless open source has a massive surge, windoz 7 and future releases will be the future for MOST peoples computing....

I laugh in the face of 64Bit computing. Who the hell needs to run more than 3Gig of ram on a "home" computer. Lots of virtual machines runnin.... ok then maybe...... loads of CPU intensive maths programmes.... ok then.... but for a home computer to web-browse email and type the odd doc (or sketchup or google earth) come on!

Steve

 

[matt]

I had the good fortune to win a stupidly powerful PC. The extra processor speed and RAM is hardly noticeable. For most things processor speed and RAM ceased to be an inhibiting factor about 7 years ago (e.g a 1.4Ghz, 512MB RAM remains adequate for the vast majority of things). Modern software is increasingly polished with eye candy which negates the extra power for little real benefit.

 

[kityuser]

I had the good fortune to win a stupidly powerful PC. The extra processor speed and RAM is hardly noticeable. For most things processor speed and RAM ceased to be an inhibiting factor about 7 years ago (e.g a 1.4Ghz, 512MB RAM remains adequate for the vast majority of things). Modern software is increasingly polished with eye candy which negates the extra power for little real benefit.

99% agree. My 3GHz P4 (that must be getting on for 5 years old now) isn't hyperthreading and is more than powerful enough for everything I do (running VMs as well). Most modern operating systems do "require" a bit more ram than 512meg, I'd say 1Gig was getting close to a minimum.
This of course is debatable as its dependent on usage.

I spend a bit of my spare time video editing on my G4 mac mini. 1 Gig of ram and 1.42GHz, it can get sluggish but plonds along. And I also spend an amount of time transcoding on my P4 (mainly to H.264), I now have some dedicated hardware to so this for me on my mac....
Both of these processes would benefit from me investing in a multi-core machine (certainly the H.264 encoder I use ffmpeg has muti-threading support), but I most certainly don't spend most of my time doing this (say for my job).

in the workshop I've got an old cerleron laptop that streams mp3s....

Steve

 

[matt]

Most modern operating systems do "require" a bit more ram than 512meg, I'd say 1Gig was getting close to a minimum.
This of course is debatable as its dependent on usage.

That was kinda what I was getting at with regard to modern software. Vista, for example... The "improvements" to the core OS do not require extra RAM, it's all the eye candy.

 

[CHJ]

Currently web browsing with this.
Fine for basic file handling and web access.

 

[kityuser]

Most modern operating systems do "require" a bit more ram than 512meg, I'd say 1Gig was getting close to a minimum.
This of course is debatable as its dependent on usage.

That was kinda what I was getting at with regard to modern software. Vista, for example... The "improvements" to the core OS do not require extra RAM, it's all the eye candy.

it been my limited experience that some of the base programmes are the culprit, i.e. word, excel, IE, Firefox, outlook etc etc.

When I say a minimum, I mean to run abunch of these programmes, getting the OS to multi task without swapping (to disk).
Its been my experience that about 1Gig is the minimum for me to achieve this (thats running XP). I`ve heard that Vista "really" needs 4Gig to run properly :?

Steve

 

[RogerS]

,,,,, I`ve heard that Vista "really" needs 4Gig to run properly :?

:shock: :shock: Way to go, Microsoft!

 

[Gerry]

I run Vista64 and Win7 on a couple of machines and there is no difference in performance. Vista is and has always been fast and stable for me on my pc (much faster than XP) because it is running on modern hardware it is intended to!
I often find that most people who come out with the statements like "Win7 is faster than Vista on my machine" aren't comparing like with like. Most often they have all the garbage originally installed by the PC vendor on with Vista then compare that to a clean install of 7. Stick all the garbage back on with 7 and see the speed drop! Windows 7 is merely a polished Vista with basically the same interface...

Gerry

 

[cambournepete]

... the others are routinely subjected to registry and redundant software cleans.

What tools do you use Chas?

 

[CHJ]

Hi Pete, Not at base at the moment but I think the registry cleaner I use is " Register Cleaner Pro" Edit: Registry Repair Pro This preceeded by a manual clearing out of any folders and dross left by poor un-install programs using file searches.

Not 100% on the cleaner name as I've had several over time. I can tell you it cost me $9.99 for the last version I bought.
Will try to update this post when I return.

http://www.3bsoftware.com/products/registryrepair.asp

Currently shown as $19.99 but I aquired it via a link from associate, Ashampoo. at $9.99.

If you leave 3bsoftware page open for a while, as though you may be undecided, when you go to shut it down you will often be offered a discount code price, currently $8.49.