New to XP x64 Pro

[codeseven]

Hi, I will be receiving XP x64 Pro in the mail soon for use on my new (first time) PC Build.

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 939 90nm 1mb L2 cache
DFI LP NF4 SLI-DR
2GB (2x1GB) Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC4000
1-BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256mb
WD 74 Gb SATA 10,000 rpm Raptor
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 510 SLI
NEC 3540A DVD RW
Mitsumi Floppy 7 in 1 USB Card Reader/Smart Media Internal Drive
Lian Li PC-60B Plus case

I'm only familiar with XP Home.
Is their anything I need to be aware of prior to attemting to install this OS on this rig?

 

[apu318]

Nope. The only thing you need to know really is that all your hardware drivers will need to be 64bit drivers. A lot of manufacturer websites have them. Most 32 bit programs are backwards compatible. Very nice rig btw.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

and also with XP Pro you will get more "administrative" tools to play with, other wise it will all look the same.

 

[Sucka]

Been using x64 for a few weeks now and it's a very nice/stable OS. Identical to XP in every way. It offers nothing over XP Pro performance wise. Only issue you may run into is drivers and some applications not working, and i myself haven't had to many problems there. The only problem i had with x64 so far was RAID 0. It took me about a week to find a work around for it, and was quite frustrating, but that's since been worked out. You can download a 180-day trial for free, you might want to give that a shot to see if you like it and if it's compatible with all your hardware/software.

Here's my comparison between XP Pro and XP Pro x64:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=401655

 

[codeseven]

Cool, thanks.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

x64 will have a NICE increase in apps / games coded for x64 - otherwise it can sometimes perform slower on 32bit apps then 32bit XP.

 

[apu318]

Windows feels a bit snappier I think, like youre on a freshly formatted P4.

 

[Phalinx]

Been using x64 for a few weeks now and it's a very nice/stable OS. Identical to XP in every way. It offers nothing over XP Pro performance wise. Only issue you may run into is drivers and some applications not working, and i myself haven't had to many problems there. The only problem i had with x64 so far was RAID 0. It took me about a week to find a work around for it, and was quite frustrating, but that's since been worked out. You can download a 180-day trial for free, you might want to give that a shot to see if you like it and if it's compatible with all your hardware/software.

Here's my comparison between XP Pro and XP Pro x64:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=401655

Sucka,

What was the problem you were having? Was it related to the sata hostraid controller (window's F6 installation of additional drivers)? I have a problem with the Adaptec embedded sata hostraid controller driver during F6 winxp x64 install.....

I found a driver over at Dell's website that kind of worked. I have a post here under the Device driver forum. The array is recognized as 1 large partition. Currently, I have 4 partitions c,d,e, and f drives. Winxp x32 is on "c" drive. With the Dell driver or could be the raid bios??, it recognizes c drive as an unknown partition and a rather large unformatted partition which I have a bunch of files on.....strange. Must be Winxp x64 reading the drives in 64 bit instead of 32 bit. Different ntfs fat structure perhaps?

Cheers

 

[Aaron Burton]

um... what apps were designed for 64 bit?

What is the advantage of xp64?

 

[Cheator]

I know that there is a 64 bit version of far cry. There is also a 64 bit version of a few apps out there, but I don't know any big ones. Also, in the future many will be 64 bit. Like Photoshop and whatnot.

The advantage of xp64, from what I saw, was snappier system. I also gamed with it and I had a slight performance gain.

Disadvantage back when I tried it, but could be fixed now, is driver support.

 

[codeseven]

Speaking of drivers, since this OS is new, will it have the SATA driver for my Raptor or should I anticipate doing the 'F6' thing and installing them separately via a floppy?

If so, what other drivers should I be putting on a floppy in anticipation of using them?

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

um... what apps were designed for 64 bit?

What is the advantage of xp64?

RIght now - very few ebcause x64 is not expanded enough for companies to convert over their software - but give it a year or 2 and all of your daily used apps will likely be in a 64bit flavour.

 

[Sucka]

Sucka,

What was the problem you were having? Was it related to the sata hostraid controller (window's F6 installation of additional drivers)? I have a problem with the Adaptec embedded sata hostraid controller driver during F6 winxp x64 install.....

I found a driver over at Dell's website that kind of worked. I have a post here under the Device driver forum. The array is recognized as 1 large partition. Currently, I have 4 partitions c,d,e, and f drives. Winxp x32 is on "c" drive. With the Dell driver or could be the raid bios??, it recognizes c drive as an unknown partition and a rather large unformatted partition which I have a bunch of files on.....strange. Must be Winxp x64 reading the drives in 64 bit instead of 32 bit. Different ntfs fat structure perhaps?

Cheers

The problem i had was when i did the F6 install it would not recognize the array at all. It would report there were no hard drives to install Windows to. I'm not sure what problem you're having.

Here are the only F6 drivers i could get to work with RAID. Took me several days to come upon these after a lot of searching, was really a pita.

codeseven: You won't need any drivers assuming you're just running one Raptor. I'm not sure what your hardware is, but the driver problem is realted specifically to DFI NF4 and NF4 in general.

There aren't many 64Bit applications right now, but i hope soon that will change. As it stands, x64 is almost identical to XP as far as performance goes, so if you don't have any compatibility issues with your hardware/software there really is no reason to not use it. I wouldn't buy it personally, but i have been using the trial version for the past several weeks. I also traded in one of my copies of XP for a valid key about 4 weeks ago and Msoft is slower than dirt

 

[codeseven]

Thanks for the info Sucka, and great review on the performance of x64.

Mike

 

[Biofear]

I have a copy of xp64 but I don't use it JUST because I haven't found a good anti virus that will work on it.