Vista 32 vs 64 bit - Clarification plz

Clseeper

I'm currently designing my new computer and hope to order soon. One, of many, things which I needed to re-educate myself on from the last time I built my computer is the whole Vista thing. I understand the principle differences between the two but some things are still confusing me:

32 bit will only recognize 3.25GB of RAM so to get the full 4GB I will have I need Vista 64 bit....ok for me so far.

If I do get Vista 64bit, is it only the hardware that I need to get decent drivers for? This will not effect most software [excluding 8 bit]? All my parts will be new so there's a good chance they will all work and have 64bit drivers:

Point of View GeForce 8800GTS 320MB
Samsung DVD±RW burner, SH-S203N
Samsung SpinPoint T166 320GB SATA2

Any other hardware that could have compatibility issues?

Really, any help appreciated. Thanks.

Here’s my full wish list/order:
• 327183 Acer 22" LCD AL2216Wsd, Widescreen, Silver/Black, 1680x1050, 700:1, 5ms
• 327671 Corsair Powersupply 520W Black, ATX/EPS, 120mm Fan, 4xSATA, SLI, WxHxL 150x86x150
• 329577 Logitech Cordless Desktop LX710 Laser, keyboard/mouse, USB, UK
• 332029 Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student English Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote
• 330707 Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Eng OEM DVD 32bit
• 333960 Point of View GeForce 8800GTS 320MB,DDR3 PCI-Express, DVI, Extreme ed. w/STALKER
• 107052 Power Cable PC 2m (UK) w/fuse
• 340903 Samsung DVD±RW burner, SH-S203N, 20x, Dual, LightScribe, Black, OEM, SATA
• 329043 Samsung SpinPoint T166 320GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
• 115475 Serial ATA cable 50 cm SATA/SATA2
• 338959 Upgrade Kit Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, Asus P5N-E SLI, 4096MB
• 320535 XION II BLACK PEARL W/green led, X Factor metallic design (without PSU)

Spear

Clseeper wrote: »

I'm currently designing my new computer and hope to order soon. One, of many, things which I needed to re-educate myself on from the last time I built my computer is the whole Vista thing. I understand the principle differences between the two but some things are still confusing me:

32 bit will only recognize 3.25GB of RAM so to get the full 4GB I will have I need Vista 64 bit....ok for me so far.

To get WHQL certification these days a driver must also be supplied with a 64bit version. So any driver that comes with Vista 32bit will also be supplied with Vista 64bit.

highlydebased

Clseeper wrote: »

• 320535 XION II BLACK PEARL W/green led, X Factor metallic design (without PSU)

I got the exact same case today....its a lovely case

Plenty of fans in it....

Clseeper

Neon-Circles wrote: »

I got the exact same case today....its a lovely case

Plenty of fans in it....

Yeap, I'm hoping to order before they run out. Think there are only a few left. The fans were one reason I'm getting it as my last PC would crash when running highly demanding games for over a certain amount of time. Never did get it sorted so going to do it right this time

So vista 64bit it is. Thanks spear.

white_falcon

Clseeper wrote: »

• 332029 Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student English Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote

why buy Office? U can use Open Office instead - pretty much the exact same thing but its opensource so its free...seriously I would not go wasting money on that.

I had problems with the whole 64bit thing when I bought Vista 64bit and tried installing my PC hardware. There really is actually no problem as long as you have a PC in the house with an internet connection - whatever hardware wont install on Vista 64bit, just google it and you'll get Vista 64bit drivers no problem. I had to do it with about 3 or 4 things and they all work fine. Seriously theres no problem at all with Vista 64bit and the whole 4gigs of ram...its deadly. I had 2 gigs in it first and it was ok - Vista takes up a lot of ram even when doing nothing. The 4 gigs are very freakin fast

Oh one thing - install one 2gig stick when booting the PC first, then download the patch from Microsoft for the other 2 gigs - its somewhere on their site. U can only install 2gigs when installing Vista, then download the patch, turn off ur PC, put in the other stick, and it all works fine

Clseeper

Thanks white_falcon, thats exactly the type of little hints and tips I've been trawling the net for over the last few days. That would really annoy me, putting the whole thing together to find it doesn't detect some RAM or other component.

I'll look into the open office aswell. I was putting down that as a once off buy so didn't mind that much but with an extra €110 I can get a larger HD now instead of getting another one later.

astrofool

never had any problems installing 4gigs with Vista here.

SickBoy

Me neither..

Windows XP SP2 and Vista will have issues with RAM over 3-3.5GB. The actual available RAM will depend on the chipset. I've seen it as low as 2.93GB on an Asus P5B and as high as 3.5GB on newer nForce boards. Windows has supported PAE mode since Windows 2000, which should theoretically allow up to 64GB RAM on 32-bit systems but due to the AMD NX bit's requirement for PAE, Microsoft capped PAE's address space at 4GB in SP2 to retain compatibility with device drivers. This means that when 4GB of RAM is added in, this consumes all of the address space. The chipset then needs to calculate how much address space the hardware needs and deduct this from the total RAM. Windows Server 2003 and XP SP1 and earlier should support 4GB of RAM because they can use the extra bits provided by PAE for addressing and don't take NX/XD protection into account (with the exception of Server 2003 Standard SP1 which uses XP SP2's behaviour).

The main software issues with 64-bit versions of Windows are device drivers and 16-bit apps. It's not just hardware, any application which uses 32-bit kernel mode drivers, whether for hardware or not, cannot load that driver and therefore the program will probably suffer some sort of compatibility issue. 16-bit apps, DOS or Windows, will not run because the NTVDM emulator has been removed. This can be got round by using DOSBox or Virtual PC to boot an older OS capable of running them.

Hope this helps, though maybe it's a bit too technical for some, lol.