Budget upgrades

[gigantibyte]

I personally have Professional.

 

Ooo. XP Mode. Though it probably doesn’t beat an actual XP partition. Wish they would include emulators for 95 and 98, that could run old games on new systems.

[gigantibyte]

But... You'll need the 64bit version to have more than 4gb ram, so you'd also need a 64bit processor.

 

That's not a 'given' with the i7? Could you point me to an id chart or something?

[Vagrant0]

But... You'll need the 64bit version to have more than 4gb ram, so you'd also need a 64bit processor.

 

That's not a 'given' with the i7? Could you point me to an id chart or something?

I don't actually know intel processors, but it's possible that early forms of the i7 were not 64bit.

[gigantibyte]

I don't actually know intel processors, but it's possible that early forms of the i7 were not 64bit.

 

Apparently windows does a 64bit compatibility test and reports this in 'Performance Information and Tools'. At work atm, so can't check until later. Should be good to go though. Every i7 listed here supports Intel 64. Pretty sure I don't have an unknown proto type i7. If it weren't for your mod status, I'd think you were trolling me. :)

[Vagrant0]

I don't actually know intel processors, but it's possible that early forms of the i7 were not 64bit.

 

Apparently windows does a 64bit compatibility test and reports this in 'Performance Information and Tools'. At work atm, so can't check until later. Should be good to go though. Every i7 listed here supports Intel 64. Pretty sure I don't have an unknown proto type i7. If it weren't for your mod status, I'd think you were trolling me. :)

I mostly mentioned it because you were asking about a 32bit or 64bit version of W7 a few posts back. Even with a 64bit processor you need a 64bit version of windows to use more than 4gb ram.

[gigantibyte]

I mostly mentioned it because you were asking about a 32bit or 64bit version of W7 a few posts back. Even with a 64bit processor you need a 64bit version of windows to use more than 4gb ram.

 

It's cool. Good to know. Also checked if my EVGA x58 SLI3 mb was 64 bit compatible. So I should be able to get Win7 home premium + 12 gb DDR3 ram 1600MHz for under $200. (The new ram should not be mixed with the 3 sticks of 1 gb 1333 MHz I currently have, right?)

[Illiad86]

I personally have Professional.

 

Ooo. XP Mode. Though it probably doesn’t beat an actual XP partition. Wish they would include emulators for 95 and 98, that could run old games on new systems.

 

Yeah...it doesn't. If you install XP mode like you are supposed to...sound, internet, USB ports, etc. all works right away. Not sure on video though...I tried it once and wasn't very impressed. It's just nice to have Pro because it supports 192GB RAM :P Not like any motherboard currently can support that much, but yeah :P Home Premium used to be only supported until 2014...but they changed it to 2020 like the rest of them.

 

When I heard about this great feature of getting Professional, I was expecting a DOS or Windows 98 mode. But, a lot of older games do work on Windows 7. Normally you have to use compatibility mode (usually Windows XP SP3, run in 256 colours, run in 640x480 etc.). Some games, like Fallout, you actually have to end explorer.exe in the Task Manager otherwise the colours are all rainbow when you play it. I've played Fallout, FFVII, and a lot of older games on Windows 7 no problem :) For even older games, DOSBox is the best. It can be a pain to setup, it's even worse when you have odd audio chipsets like I did with my old Dell laptop.

 

As far as the RAM, you can mix them together. Your 1600 would just downclock to 1333. I'd just get the 1600 and sell or give away your old stuff. I'd only get like 8GB though, 12 seems a little overkill. I barely saw an improvement going from 4GB of DDR3 1600 to 8GB DDR3 1600. Skyrim loaded a bit faster, but overall performance wasn't increased by much.

[gigantibyte]

I think you'd be better off getting a new graphics card all together. Like a 560ti or the new 6 series ones if you are planning to stay with Nvidia.

I think my dual video processor / 896 MB (x2) GTX 295 kicks the 560ti out of the water.

 

 

...seems a little overkill

 

Lol. I've heard that throughout the last 25 years.

[Vagrant0]

I'd only get like 8GB though, 12 seems a little overkill.

That depends entirely on what you're doing and how many background things you have going. I could max out 12gb pretty easily if I had it, without doing much more than what I'm normally doing.

 

Then again, it would probably overtax my processor to manage everything I would want to have running.

[Illiad86]

True. I guess if you do a lot of rendering or CAD designs, extra RAM would be nice. I really didn't even need more RAM, but my boyfriend insisted on me getting something for my computer for my birthday. I figured "ah what the heck, just get more RAM. It's cheap :P"

 

Ahh OP, it's a dual one huh? Yeah, that'll blow the 560Ti outa the water ;) A 64 bit OS and some more RAM would be the upgrade for you then. Haven't kept up much with Nvidia cards. Last one I had was a 7950GT and it was awesome. Passive cooled and played Oblivion modded to hell and back again perfectly. Can't complain about my ATI card really, yeah the drivers have been crud lately, but it plays every game I have on Ultra so me happy :D