Vista or other options?

Hi i was just wondering if when i order my m17(the one i will most likely get). Can i get it on XP, because im not that fond of vista, or just wait for windows 7...which i dont know when is coming out. Any information would be very appreciated, thanks.

 

I would go with Vista. With the service pack it as good as XP now, another Service Pack is right around the corner and Windows 7 will be released as a public RC on May 5, so it should hit the retail market in the 3rd quarter or so.

 

It's not an option from A.W. to get it with XP. Like posted above, sp1 has made a world of difference. For gaming, Vista is now slightly faster than XP, and from what I've read, W7 (Vista2) is slightly faster than Vista.

You should get Vista (Iprefer 64bit) and I think you may come to like it.

There are a lot of sites for Vista users that help customizeit and make it way less annoying.

Besides, although W7 will be worthwhile, it's essentially an upgraded version of Vista.

 

ok well, i have used vista very little, it seems a bit harder to navigate when i have used it. Also my older brother has a dell inspiron from 2 years ago. Would his vista be equivalent to those of that being sold currently, or not as efficient and easy to use.
and thanks for the responses

 

Depends, if the equipment is up to par and he has kept up with service packs and patches it should be the same, BUT, since Vista uses new drivers the newer equipment such as the alienware laptops are designed to run with Vista and may be a different experience entirely.

whew that is one long sentence!

 

Hi

I like Vista more than XP, and it would be a waist to run XP on a gaming notebook which is capable of playing games in DX10 mode^^

IF you like to "do something" or we say, "make yourself dirty" to reach a aim, than order Vista (go for 64bit!) and install W7 Beta! very soon the RC will come out! But even right now W7 is better than Vista in my oppinion^^

I run W7 Beta (2 time 64bit and one time 32bit) since the Betarelease and I love it! The performance is nice and so far, I have no problemes!

Just in case you have a problem, just install W7 as a second OS, we call it DualBoot, than you can switch during bootup between Vista and W7

Greetings
Julian

 

Hm ok, so W7 is just a better vista basically? and I'm assuming the m17 from alienware has the ability to rock 2 OS's? so i can figure out which i prefer

 

yeah w7 uses the same driver model but it is a leaner meaner version of vista with some cool new features...

 

I was a XP hold-out for a long time, but for current games and new hardware Vista 64bit is the way to go.


600!

 

congratz! well, for example i have XP right now, could i try out W7 or would that be impossible, or if i had vista, could i try it out this moment?

 

For a good experience you really need to make sure you have all of the drivers and such. Vista does need more memory and any equipment over 3 years old probably runs better with XP, IMO. Older laptops can be especially troublesome as the drivers are more difficult to come by etc.

 

fair enough, but an M17 should run blazingly fast with vista 64 bit, non ultimate package..wahtever that is

 

yes it should... with the dual 3870's in crossfire and a 2.5ghz 6mb cache or higher it should be a rocket, especially with the ram running at 1066mhz. I would call it a screamer, imo.

 

ah, well i was leaning towards the quad processor to future proof though it wont work perfectly with the recentish games

 

yeah that is a tough call... right now clock speed on a 2.0 quad is a little low when the games only use 1 or 2 cores... any quad at 2.5 or faster would future proof. I am assuming you mean the 2.0 quad... and not the Quad extreme... if it is the quad extreme you are pretty much future proofing as much as you can but your processor will outlast your video cards... I would save the money and plan to replace in 3 years with the next kick (other word for donkey here) machine.

Does anyone know if the 2.0 quads are throttling?

 

Regardless of weather you choose a dual core or a quad, you should understand that the ATI cards like the 3870's are very CPU dependent.

Meaning you'll see significant differences in fps and benchmarks depending on how fast the processor is. In addition to speed, four cores generally nets a boost as well.

read through the forums to decide if you want a quad or a dual. Then decide how fast you can afford.

IMO, others may dispute this, looking at raw performance I rank the QX9300 quad #1, and the X9100 dual core #2. Both are extreme processors and overclock quite well.

Some games utilize four cores and others don't, that's why speed may also be a consideration for you.

I have not heard of the quads throttling in the M17, maybe others have.

 

my budget allows for a quad9000 or the 2.53 duo, rest of set would be 1920x1200 reso---dual 3870---ill keyboard--320gig hard drive around 2200..oh and I'm putting in ram myself, getting cheapest then putting in up to 4 gigs..so yeah just letting you know, I've read a good amount about those 2 different processors and i like the idea of the quad, IMO

 

I think in real life you will see a performance boost with today's games using the 2.53 duo. Any software able to multi thread across those 4 cores will get a big boost but most software written today wont do that. So I don't think I could tell you one way or the other as most tests aren't using real life scenarios. So I think it is kind of a gamble, if Windows 7 and future games effectively use all four cores you will see a big boost, but if they take another 3-4 years before they get there you will have 2 cores rarely used and the other 2 running at 2.0GHz. Tough call.

 

Cool,

I'm sure you'll love it Clauss!

 

Aye, well thank you all for your information and responses, i can now make a better decision when i order my laptop.

 

It's just as easy to navigate if you set it up that way.

FOR ME, I always (XP or VISTA) switched everything back to classic style start menu's and control panel's. Seriously, it's almost impossible to tell the difference when it comes to navigating.


As far as your brother's....as long as he's had automatic updates on, he's fully updated --OR--if he even manually updates every once in a while it should be the same as what's out now.