Ugh. Radeon 7970 and Vista 64

[jiffylube1024]

Tried for a little while Windows 7. Bleah.

Back to my slipstreamed, super tweaked XP. I recommend to anyone to spend a little time and customize his OS in order to suit his needs, you will be amazed and this will save you a lot of time.

XP is an 11 year old OS. It has an archaic installation process that doesn't natively recognize drives attached by AHCI or RAID. It doesn't support GPU drawing, TRIM, and so many other features. Yes it boots quickly and runs fairly smoothly, but there have been a host of improvements through Vista to 7.

IMO, from my very limited experience with it, W7 is dumbed down and a pain to work with, just like the latest MS Office.

^That pretty much says it all doesn't it? IMO Windows 7 is a MORE productive OS because of things like start menu jumplists (saves me minutes of searching for shortcuts every day!), snap-to-maximize windows to half the screen (no clicks required, just make a window take up the left or right half of the screen - awesome for multitasking). It just takes a few days to get rid of it.


For anyone who's apprehensive about upgrading to W7, I strongly recommend you check this out:

Jump Lists:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/products/features/jump-lists

Snap: (better than 3rd party versions for XP and Vista)
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/products/features/snap

Win 7 performance tweaks (under the hood):
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/products/features/performance-improvements

----------

I use DropBox for many of my frequently used documents and Jump Lists to access them instantly from the desktop. DropBox sync's my documents to my desktops, laptop and Galaxy S II automatically. It has made managing my files and working with documents seamless on any computer in the house - I just link DropBox to my User account and keep everything pinned with Jump Lists. It's phenomenal!

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Folks keep on recommending Win7 because it's the right way to go. Vista, IMHO and most everybody else who's ever used it, sucked. Win7 is what Vista was supposed to be but never was.

I never ever had a problem with Vista

Then again, I'm not an idiot and always ran it with proper hardware. I suppose it helped that I waited for SP1 before I ever even bother with it. But regardless, current version of Vista is very much in line with what Windows 7 offers. Really its not unlike the days of Win 2K vs XP, only an updated Vista really is probably closer to 7 than Win 2K ever was to XP.

Vista got an unfair rap that was mostly the fault of 3rd parties like nVidia and Intel screwing things up causing incompatibilities and instabilities, and that unfair reputation as a poor OS continues to this day even though its actually an excellent OS as long as you pair it with anything remote to modern hardware.

Really the biggest selling point for me for switching to Windows 7 was TRIM support for SSDs, although now that more mature generations of SSDs have very good garbage collection, even that selling point is diminished some.

If the dude has made it this far on Vista, I say he might as well save his money and at least hold out until Windows 8. 7 really isn't that big of an upgrade

 

[SlowSpyder]

jiffylube1024, none of that stuff really interests me, like I said 'refinements'. Maybe I'll fall in love with the jumplists, snap, or the few seconds saved when plugging in a usb drive and not be able to imagine computing without those things. But it doesn't appear to be anything all that 'must-have' to me.

Vista is very, very similar, is MS supported, and DX11. I am surprised that it wasn't supported. Even more than that I would have simply liked to have seen that mentioned on Newegg's page for the cards I bought and I would have been happy. This thread is more of a knock on Newegg for not mentioning Win7-only than it is on AMD or MS.

 

[Hubb1e]

I'm running vista 64 and almost bought a 7970. The only thing that stopped me was I had a work emergency on launch day and now my excitement waned.

Vista 64 works fine and a proper OS install takes quite a while to transfer all your programs and documents. Install would take a few hours. But then it would probably take me a week before all my software is loaded up because I tend to install it as I need it.

Vista 64 is what was available when I built my computer, and upgrades and overclocking have kept it relevant enough to run a 7970. I see no reason to upgrade the OS until windows 8. And then I'll probably just build a new box.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I'm running vista 64 and almost bought a 7970. The only thing that stopped me was I had a work emergency on launch day and now my excitement waned.

Vista 64 works fine and a proper OS install takes quite a while to transfer all your programs and documents. Install would take a few hours. But then it would probably take me a week before all my software is loaded up because I tend to install it as I need it.

Vista 64 is what was available when I built my computer, and upgrades and overclocking have kept it relevant enough to run a 7970. I see no reason to upgrade the OS until windows 8. And then I'll probably just build a new box.

That's my point. I am sure Win7 is better, but Vista worked very well for me. I simply wish Newegg would have made that clear that the Diamond cards do not have a CD and the only available driver at this time is a Win7 driver. I would have waited on buying these than. I more or less had to return the cards or get Win7, I don't know that there was any gaurantee that Vista support would be in the next driver.

Anyway, it's all water under the bridge now. I just wish Newegg would have mentioned the Win7-only thing in the Details or Overview.

 

[Obsoleet]

If the dude has made it this far on Vista, I say he might as well save his money and at least hold out until Windows 8. 7 really isn't that big of an upgrade

That was my point as well. If you made it this far, Win8 is right around the corner. Vista really is 7 without the new interface. SP1, SP2 and the Platform Update were HUGE for the OS. I still have my Vista Business DVD and key, and I'd reuse them given the right machine, as opposed to buying a 7 license. At this point, that's really a waste of money in my mind.

That said, he has 7 now and it's not a bad thing either. If you go 7 at this point from Vista, the only way I could justify it is if I also added in a SSD (due to the TRIM support). That would at least make me FEEL like I made a decent decision.

I tend to jump on OS releases day 1 or never bother. Vista day 1 for me wasn't the experience most "describe" (unsure if from personal experience or not). The only OSs I didnt use from MS were Bob and Me.
In fact, Superfetch in Vista blew my mind, there's no way I could go back to XP after the switch, especially on a HDD.