I recently migrated to an AMD A64 3500+ because it fit into my $200 budget for all upgrades required to go there.
Now, I'm disappointed by the performance increase in most applications and games from my old AMD XP2500+ to this new proc. BF2, CS:S, HL2 - all better but not "outstanding" - as I've heard the migration usually is.
Right now I'm dual booting - Vista64 on my 250GB C: drive, and XP Pro on my 120GB D: drive. The XP install is my default OS so I can still photochop and play games and stuff.
Here's what I need to know - What's the deal with XP64? ** Can I still get it? ** Is it worth it over my XP32 install? ** I use a lot of the "pro" functions (mstsc, file sharing on our home network, etc) - can I use them on XP64? ** Is XP64 just Vista64? 'Cause I'm running it and it still sucks. I can't use my sound card which I require because of its digital out functions.
Now the information you need: CPU: AMD A64 3500+ 939 M/B: ASROCK 939-DUAL-VSTA RAM: (1) 1GB PC3200 CAS 2.5 GPU: ATI x850Pro 256MB AGP8x Sound: SB Live! 5.1 Gamer / onboard something or other - no listed "digital out" (disabled) HDD1: WD 250GB 7200RPM ATA-100 8mb cache HDD2: Maxtor 120GB ATA-133 7200RPM 8mb cache Power: 500W Ultra
Yeah - the people over at PlanetAMD64 love it (go fig) and they have a lot of resources. I'm thinking about canning my Vista64 install because it's so hard on the hardware. I need more RAM - anyone got an add'l gig of pc3200?
It's not too shabby - once I got .NET to work everything fell into place. I ended up removing the SB Live! 5.1 Gamer.
The onboard works in Vista64 and lower - that works for me. No hardware errors, everything works.
Well, almost everything. I imported about my whole OS from the other machine - straight copy and it worked. The only thing I need to get working is my antivirus. Grr!
I don't use anti virus, i just don't download anything that isn't from a trusted source, i run PandaScans' online scanner once a month and it has yet to find anything in the past 8 months i haven't had anti virus.
About every 2-3 months. Lately I have been doing it once a month due to some problems and I didnt have the patience to deal with it so I reformatted and no more problem.
I rebuild about once a year - usually when I upgrade something because the hardware I'm using becomes too small for my expanding needs.
Oh, and I'm not using linux and the only viable upgrade path in my $200 range was a 64-bit chip. With new OS's being built for the 64-world and apps following we'll just have to see where it goes. In the meantime I'm ok with what I have now.
And for what it's worth, about 3 years ago the same articles were out about dual processors and all that.
