Legit Reviews

I was recently bitten by the ambition bug and have decided to build myself a new machine. I'm basically poor so I'm going to have to piece it together over a period of several months. Here are the proposed specs:
New Stuff:
E6850 CPU
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L Motherboard
XFX or EVGA 8800 GT (whoever has the better deal when I'm ready to buy)
OCZ StealthXStream 600W PSU
Some kind of mid-tower case--nothing fancy just good cooling
I'll use the 2 GB of G.Skill PC26400 RAM from my current box along with my Hanns-G monitor. Haven't yet decided whether to remain with on-board audio or return to the fold of SB Live.

So I'm trying to decide whether to take the Vista plunge or remain with XP for a couple more years til Windows 7 is released. I really value everyone's opinion here at LR so I'd like to hear what you think.

I'd choose Windows Vista if I were you, for the sole reason that Microsoft is turning most of their attention to trying to salvage it's abysmal launch. My two biggest gripes with Vista have been fixed; the user account control can be turned off, and the file transfer speeds have been improved immensely. Their software/hardware compatibility problems have also improved greatly. I also really like the entire visual upgrade that Vista has over XP. If you've never used it before, I think you'll be very impressed just by it's great-looking interface.

Now, forgive me if the following assumption is dead wrong, but judging by your future system you're going to build you're not trying to break any 3DMark or gaming records. Vista will accommodate a mid-range gaming routine just fine. Unfortunately, I'm a little obsessed with trying to wring as many frames out of any 3D application that I can, which is the only reason why I don't use Vista. XP still gives me a little bit better performance when it comes to gaming.

I hope that helped.

You're absolutely right. I do play games but I'm not fanatical about it. However, that does bring up an interesting point I hadn't considered. I would like to be able to play newer titles such as Crysis, BioShock and NFS ProStreet as well as my old favorites such as Deus Ex, Test Drive 6, Far Cry and Unreal (the original), hence my choice of graphics cards. BTW, I'm also being converted from AMD to Intel. Just can't argue with the performance despite the higher price.

Also, I want to experiment with OCing more indepth. I've played around here and there with cpu and memory speeds but nothing radical.

My experience with Vista has been limited to customers' machines that had the OS installed on vastly underpowered HPs and Dells so it's been nothing but hurry up and wait to do anything. I did a temporary install of Vista Business here at the shop which went really smoothly (once I had enough memory installed) but now that box is sitting on the back bench without a CPU.

Thanks for the advice!

Since most of the bugs with vista have been worked out, I'd go with Vista. Windows 7 isn't planned for release until 2009 or 2010, then you'll have to deal with bugs for months.
Since SP1, Vista has been pretty much rock solid.

I'm not happy with Vista SP1. The home network went belly up and the printer problem across the network no longer responded.

Go XP-Pro SP2 until the dust settles down more.

id go with vista
i played around a little bit with vista and i didn't like it the way to move around though folders its like its for first time users allot of the settings and options wasn't easy to find
and who knows how windows 7 it mite have allot of DRM problems and options
there should be a windows for more in dept users

Go with Vista if you want to play DX10 games, go with XP if you aren't bothered

Dan

XP is a solid OS as of today. That's my only MS OS recommendation.

Too bad Linux doesn't have a great following of games.

Maybe the graphics aren't as good in linux games but I'd bet that linux has more games then any one person could ever play...plus almost all of them are free (as in freedom and beer). Not to mention all the available emulators. Linux has lots of games

For a small taste:
http://whdb.com/2008/top-25-linux-games-for-2008/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_games
http://www.linuxgames.com/

Back on topic though, I use Vista, but ONLY for gaming, I did use it as my main OS for a little while but that didn't go so well, talk about frustrating...so if you plan to dualboot I'd go ahead and pick up Vista for games but other than that it's XP (or Ubuntu) all the way!

Thanks everybody!
Y'all certainly gave me a lot to think about. I lean toward remaining with XP simply because it works for what I generally do. IOW, it ain't broken so why fix it? With my current system, over-the-top games aren't an issue because I don't have the horsepower to run them (although I want to get to that point sooner than later)

The "adventuresome" side of me ways, "WTF, go ahead and go with Vista." It seems that at least a majority of the driver issues have been resolved, not ot mention the long-awaited SP1 plus I could always switch back if I get too disgusted, right?

In any event I'm ordering my mobo and CPU this week.

XP is my only recommendation also. Vista is, and always will be a mess imo.