New PC and Operating System

I Googled, I searched, I have tinkered. I have a new speedy machine, 9650 Quad core from Intel, 8 gigs of ram, 1.3 terabytes of storage, Blue-ray, SLI Nvidia. Its got it all.

I tweaked up Vista 64, got a few glitchy apps to work (including a program from 1995!) and have it about where I want it. But I really don't care for Vista and before I move it to my primary machine, I am concerned about compatibility in 64 bit. I want maximum performance from my overpriced but super faced processor. My only problem now is that Flash will not install in IE, but I decided to go Firefox 3 as my primary browser anyhow, was tiring fast of Internet Explorer.

So, the simple question is; Do you NEED a 64 Bit Operating System to take adavantage of the Quad Core and 8 gigs of ram? Ill install whatever is best.

 

P.S This thing is sick fast with Vista 64. Shutdown is about 3 seconds. Everything just pops up. Insane.

 

Good info, that did not come up in search. Lot of "experts" don't even mention it and make claims that the 4 cores are app dependant, where I assumed the OS had to support it first. I think I will run Vista 64 for now, its running faaaaaaaast.

 

I used the Nvidia 680i drivers, all in one and its working. X-Fi card was built in and the USB network adapter (no room with SLI for any extra devices) works great. Most of my hardware is newer, so far so good.

 

Nice PC MA,

I'm in the process of migrating completly to x64 Vista and already have another OS in 64bit installed and working fine, most apps that dont have 64bit capabilities do tend to work as you may notice two Program Files folders as in

Program Files ~ which is for native 64bit apps
Program Files{x86) ~ for 32bit apps

Also there are two registries to cope with both versions, the 64bit registry is located in the sysWOW64 folder in Windows Dir.



I found that going to the online installer for Adobe Flash was non working until I installed the downloadable one worked fine when run as Admin http://majorgeeks.com/Adobe_Flash_Player_d5163.html (as a side note if some want older Flash Players for any reason you will find them here ) then try the online installer to check Flash was installed.

Although you will need to run the 32bit IE over the 64bit one as Adobe as yet have not built a 64bit interface yet, working on it as 64bit is coming more popular.


iTunes and 64bit, if you use iTunes then the 32bit one I found does not work so I needed to grab this one here as the downloads page didnt work for me at Apple and say I had 64bit OS, kept offering me the 32bit one.

 

You are correct, although the article he posted covered it more. Thanks to everyones help with a few glitches, were off and running with no compatibility problems anymore.

 

Just want to add a note as I forgot with x64 iTunes, is that I not found the 8.1 version download link as yet, but the 7.x version will when click update via iTunes update it to x64 8.x current version.

Good stuff on no compatabilty issues