Which version of Vista should I get?

[Smartazz]

My rig is the following:
X2@2.6GHZ
2GB PC6400 RAM
8800GTS(648,1998)
320GB Seagate Perpendicular Recording Drive
Lite-on DVD-ROM drive

I really only want Vista for gaming and microsoft said that Ultimate has the most gaming performance, is this really true, and is it worth getting?
I was considering the Vista OEM for Home Builders and dual booting both Vista and Windows XP Pro, is there any problem with this specific version of Windows?
Text
Is it true that I need a DVD burner to use Vista Ultimate?

 

[lxskllr]

All of the Vista versions will work the same as far as core performance goes. I'd just buy the one with the features you need. The DVD burner requirement is to take advantage of specific features in Ultimate, otherwise you can do everything that you could in the lesser versions. I think Home Premium is best for most home users. Get Ultimate if you have the extra money and want everything that's available.


Edit: I'd stay away from oem versions this early in the os' lifespan. People have been able to activate on more than one computer, but I wouldn't take that for granted. Retail will guarantee for future ability to transfer the license to a different computer, and you'll probably be using this for the next 5 years or so.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
All of the Vista versions will work the same as far as core performance goes. I'd just buy the one with the features you need. The DVD burner requirement is to take advantage of specific features in Ultimate, otherwise you can do everything that you could in the lesser versions. I think Home Premium is best for most home users. Get Ultimate if you have the extra money and want everything that's available.

I see that the only big diffrence with Ultimate is the built in file encryption. Is this important?

 

[lxskllr]

Not to me. That's a security feature that I just don't need. That would be good if you had highly sensitive data that you need to protect, particularly on a laptop(easy to steal). I don't completely trust drive encryption either. I can envision a problem where I lose my data, and can't recover it do to the encryption routine.

 

[Smartazz]

I don't know if this is true, but I also read that with Ultimate you can buy Home Premium Licences for only $50 a piece, does this mean I can get Ultimate on my main rig then buy a whole bunch of licences for my other computers?

 

[lxskllr]

I think you're limited to 2 copies of Home Premium at the $50 price, but otherwise the information is correct.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I think you're limited to 2 copies of Home Premium at the $50 price, but otherwise the information is correct.

I also think that is the retail version only so forget about it. I'll probobly order Home Premium tonight. Thanks for your help.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Smartazz
I don't know if this is true, but I also read that with Ultimate you can buy Home Premium Licences for only $50 a piece, does this mean I can get Ultimate on my main rig then buy a whole bunch of licences for my other computers?

Would that include running Home Premium in a VMWare session on a separate machine?

 

[amheck]

Originally posted by: Smartazz
I don't know if this is true, but I also read that with Ultimate you can buy Home Premium Licences for only $50 a piece, does this mean I can get Ultimate on my main rig then buy a whole bunch of licences for my other computers?

where'd you read that?

 

[mzkhadir]

Originally posted by: amheck

Originally posted by: Smartazz
I don't know if this is true, but I also read that with Ultimate you can buy Home Premium Licences for only $50 a piece, does this mean I can get Ultimate on my main rig then buy a whole bunch of licences for my other computers?

where'd you read that?

Microsoft said it themselves.

 

[LouPoir]

Looks like the Home Premium version is the best one out there --- IMHO

 

[Griffinhart]

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/01-17ConsumerOptionsPR.mspx

Towards the end of the announcement.

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: Smartazz

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I think you're limited to 2 copies of Home Premium at the $50 price, but otherwise the information is correct.

I also think that is the retail version only so forget about it. I'll probobly order Home Premium tonight. Thanks for your help.

Yep, the Family Discount thing is for Ultimate retail (full or upgrade) only. The Home Premium copies that you get with it are upgrades only (no full copies).

I see that the only big diffrence with Ultimate is the built in file encryption. Is this important?

I think you are referring to BitLocker, which is disk encryption, not file encryption (EFS is file encryption, and they can be used simultaneously to compliment each other).

I can envision a problem where I lose my data, and can't recover it do to the encryption routine.

One of the Ultimate Extras will be a secure online backup of your EFS and/or BitLocker keys. See: http://windowsultimate.com/blogs/extras...07/bitlocker-and-efs-enhancements.aspx

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

Also, keep in mind that Home Premium still cannot join a domain or use Active Directory. Probably not an issue for most, but if you have a home or office network, then it's something to consider.

 

[MBrown]

Originally posted by: Hurricane Andrew
Also, keep in mind that Home Premium still cannot join a domain or use Active Directory. Probably not an issue for most, but if you have a home or office network, then it's something to consider.

which one would allow that? Business?

 

[stash]

Business and Ultimate (and Enterprise, which is volume license only).

 

[stash]

Keep in mind that all versions can authenticate to a domain resource using a valid user account. So if you just need to get to a share or a printer or something, that will work fine with the Home versions.

If you need a machine to get group policy, you need to be able to join a domain, which requires business, ultimate or enterprise.

 

[gizbug]

Vista for gaming? LOL. Funny.

Read this before you drop your hard earned cash on "Vista."


"" Final Thoughts

As with most articles of this nature, we can't fully give a conclusion because so many factors come into play. Though as it stands, we can learn a lot from this simple round of tests. First is the fact that Vista is not going to be an OS for an ultimate gaming machine anytime soon. This is something that you should consider before you throw a bunch of cash at a new computer and then pick up Vista along with it.

The Vista NVIDIA drivers used during testing were just finalized the other day, the result of a string of tireless days of bug smashing. Vista is not necessarily a harder OS to develop for, but because coders need to learn the new architecture, we can expect to wait a while before our PCs are "perfect". Even with these "final" drivers, SLI is still inoperable and may not be for another few weeks. Even at that time, nobody is going to know whether it's going to equal the performance we currently see on XP. Even with my simple one card testing, we can see there is a lot of work to be done, both with the drivers and perhaps with games developers releasing updates that better support Vista.

So, I've said it before and will say it again. Vista is a good operating system... but it's -far- from being even 90% reliable. When going from an XP machine to Vista, it feels like you just went from a Toyota Celica to a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. The only problem is, that it feels like your new Ferrari borrowed your Celicas engine. We'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

In the end, if you are making the move to Vista and are a gamer, you may as well prepare to partition your hard drive to dual boot. You are not going to want to go through the hassle of making your games run smooth in Vista, or go through the trouble of tweaking to make it happen. Hopefully within the next two months, NVIDIAs drivers will be much more refined and -all- games should run as they do on XP, or at least close to it. I regret not having an ATI card on hand to perform testing there as well, but it may not be a far stretch to expect a similar experience there.""
http://techgage.com/article/windows_vista_gaming_performance_reports/2

 

[tatteredpotato]

Hopefully Anand will have a Vista review soon, that review may be accurate, but I'm always skeptical about no-name websites.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: BlameCanada
Hopefully Anand will have a Vista review soon, that review may be accurate, but I'm always skeptical about no-name websites.

Maybe he's working on one right now, btw is he a member on the forums?

 

[wirednuts]

premium and ultimate are the only ones with media center though. HOME PREMIUM OEM is the way to go, unless you want to spend the $200 for the oem ultimate.

 

[Ryan Smith]

Originally posted by: BlameCanada
Hopefully Anand will have a Vista review soon, that review may be accurate, but I'm always skeptical about no-name websites.

Guilty as charged. It's in the cooker right now, I'm not sure when it will be up though, as we're still trying to keep on top of all of the weird stuff that Vista does that isn't "wrong" but is different enough to throw us for a loop.

As for what version to go for, I'd vote Business.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: gizbug
Vista for gaming? LOL. Funny.

Read this before you drop your hard earned cash on "Vista."


"" Final Thoughts

As with most articles of this nature, we can't fully give a conclusion because so many factors come into play. Though as it stands, we can learn a lot from this simple round of tests. First is the fact that Vista is not going to be an OS for an ultimate gaming machine anytime soon. This is something that you should consider before you throw a bunch of cash at a new computer and then pick up Vista along with it.

The Vista NVIDIA drivers used during testing were just finalized the other day, the result of a string of tireless days of bug smashing. Vista is not necessarily a harder OS to develop for, but because coders need to learn the new architecture, we can expect to wait a while before our PCs are "perfect". Even with these "final" drivers, SLI is still inoperable and may not be for another few weeks. Even at that time, nobody is going to know whether it's going to equal the performance we currently see on XP. Even with my simple one card testing, we can see there is a lot of work to be done, both with the drivers and perhaps with games developers releasing updates that better support Vista.

So, I've said it before and will say it again. Vista is a good operating system... but it's -far- from being even 90% reliable. When going from an XP machine to Vista, it feels like you just went from a Toyota Celica to a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. The only problem is, that it feels like your new Ferrari borrowed your Celicas engine. We'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

In the end, if you are making the move to Vista and are a gamer, you may as well prepare to partition your hard drive to dual boot. You are not going to want to go through the hassle of making your games run smooth in Vista, or go through the trouble of tweaking to make it happen. Hopefully within the next two months, NVIDIAs drivers will be much more refined and -all- games should run as they do on XP, or at least close to it. I regret not having an ATI card on hand to perform testing there as well, but it may not be a far stretch to expect a similar experience there.""
http://techgage.com/article/windows_vista_gaming_performance_reports/2

If he actually DID have an ATI card, he'd have come to the entirely opposite conclusion.

As far as which version to go with, it doesn't matter. They will all perform the same, with the caveat that running all the features of higher versions may use up more RAM. Buy whichever has the features you're interested in.

 

[Smartazz]

How would Vista run on my system? Would the OS run faster than XP Pro does now?

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: gizbug
Vista for gaming? LOL. Funny.

Read this before you drop your hard earned cash on "Vista."


"" Final Thoughts

As with most articles of this nature, we can't fully give a conclusion because so many factors come into play. Though as it stands, we can learn a lot from this simple round of tests. First is the fact that Vista is not going to be an OS for an ultimate gaming machine anytime soon. This is something that you should consider before you throw a bunch of cash at a new computer and then pick up Vista along with it.

The Vista NVIDIA drivers used during testing were just finalized the other day, the result of a string of tireless days of bug smashing. Vista is not necessarily a harder OS to develop for, but because coders need to learn the new architecture, we can expect to wait a while before our PCs are "perfect". Even with these "final" drivers, SLI is still inoperable and may not be for another few weeks. Even at that time, nobody is going to know whether it's going to equal the performance we currently see on XP. Even with my simple one card testing, we can see there is a lot of work to be done, both with the drivers and perhaps with games developers releasing updates that better support Vista.

So, I've said it before and will say it again. Vista is a good operating system... but it's -far- from being even 90% reliable. When going from an XP machine to Vista, it feels like you just went from a Toyota Celica to a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. The only problem is, that it feels like your new Ferrari borrowed your Celicas engine. We'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

In the end, if you are making the move to Vista and are a gamer, you may as well prepare to partition your hard drive to dual boot. You are not going to want to go through the hassle of making your games run smooth in Vista, or go through the trouble of tweaking to make it happen. Hopefully within the next two months, NVIDIAs drivers will be much more refined and -all- games should run as they do on XP, or at least close to it. I regret not having an ATI card on hand to perform testing there as well, but it may not be a far stretch to expect a similar experience there.""
http://techgage.com/article/windows_vista_gaming_performance_reports/2

XP has had almost 7 years of driver updates,Vista is 2 days old now,gaming wise in my REAL experience performance is good ,playing Oblivion,Vanguard MMORPG online,stability on my Vista is excellent.
Goes to show don't believe everything you read,best way is to find out for yourself.


Vista & XP performance with CATs 7.1 ,not bad for a new OS .