Which Vista should I get? And other questions

Sorry if these have been asked before, a quick search fo the forum did not glean all of the exact results I wanted:

1) I'm debating between Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate (the Basic doesn't seem to have the new AERO interface FTL). Is it worth the extra $150 for a (soon to be) college student who games sparingly?

2) What is the deal with 32-bit vs. 64-bit Vistas? (me = total n00b when it comes to OS's). w/these specs, would I be better off running 32-bit or 64-bit and woudl it affect boot up speed, etc.?:

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)
DISPLAY Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz (maybe i should get 800MHz)?
HARD DRIVE Speed: 160GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS NETWORK CARDS Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini-Card
BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
BATTERY OPTIONS 85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0


3) Should I get a higher screen resolution than 1280x800, esp. w/ Vista, or would the 8600M GT not run it well?

Thanks in advance!

 

Well right now there is no point in not using a 64 bit version of Vista. My advice for a version: get Home Premium or Ultimate. For less money Home Premium is ideal. For a combined Home Premium + Business Ultimate is best. I'd pick Home Premium any day.
You should get a higher resolution screen if possible.

 

re #1) You only "game sparingly", but are buying a laptop with near top-of-the-line video card? The aero interface is nothing buy eye-candy, it's not actually useful for anything, imho. If you liked XP, you'll be fine with the home-basic version. Then again, if you liked XP, why not stick with XP?
My experience with 64-bit Vista-Business on a Compal IFL90 was basically okay, but I was annoyed with the way various system programs and settings were moved around, seemingly solely for the purpose of making me search for them. In the end, some software I needed (Checkpoint VPN client) was not available for any 64-bit OS, and was only beta for 32-bit vista, made me switch back to XP.

re #2) A 32-bit OS will only be able to use 3GB of memory (any extra will just go unused). A 64-bit OS will be able to use much more than that, but any current laptop won't hold more than 4GB anyways, so you won't be gaining a whole lot of capability. I found 64-bit Vista (with no bloatware) worked MUCH better with 4GB of ram than 2GB. And XP works great with just 1GB. I would highly recommend not buying 4GB of ram from Dell, it's way cheaper to install your own. All you need to do is hit NewEgg, find laptop memory, and look at their 667mhz 200-pin DDR2 SODIMM memory. You won't gain anything by trying to get 800mhz memory with current intel laptop cpu's.

re #3) Definitely get a higher resolution. I've got the wsxga+ screen (matte, 1680x1050) powered by my 8600mGT, and it's great. Most real intense games I play at reduced resolution, to get a little better frames-per-second rate, but things look real nice.

Hope that helps!

 

Everything works better with more RAM, that's logical.

 

So if I am thinking about a sys with "Yonah" Core Duo, I believe it is 32bit.
If I don't care, (or should I?) about 64bit, will the vista 32bit be around for quite some time?, then it wont matter which vista I get...(Not to mention, the vista that comes with the unit would only be 32bit if the processor is).
thanks,

 

Yeah, the "Core Duo" is a 32-bit cpu. I think I read somewhere that Microsoft has claimed that Vista would be their last OS with a 32-bit choice, but I have a hard time believing that. (Or if true, then they are going to continue selling/supporting 32-bit vista for many years to come).