A question regarding a new PC. Not Tech Saavy,

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I am going to try an upgrade to a better pc, as my current pc is about 7 yrs old and lacking. I am trying to decide if i should upgrade to Vista or keep XP? I play the BG series/IWD series and alot of older games. But i am wanting to try some new ones as well, is Vista needed or can XP handle these without issue?

 

Given that your pc is 7 years old, I'd stick with XP. Beside, for what you play, Vista doesnt bring enough improvements.

If you really want a new Windows, rather wait until 7 comes out. From what I hear, its a LOT better than Vista in terms of performance and stability.

 

As long as i upgrade to a more powerful CPU, video card and add more RAM, XP shouldn't make a difference when running newer games?

 

Like Proteus suggested, wait till year's end, and be first in line to get Win7...it's awesome!

Now, as for your current system, I *highly* doubt that Vista (or Win7) would be able to run on such an old system...unless it was "cutting edge" (i.e. cost over $4000) when you bought it. Vista/Win7 have hefty demands for the CPU, RAM, and the videocard. Also, if you want to play 'some of the newer ones' here's the *minimum* system requirements for MassEffect:

Mass Effect

• 2.4 GHz Intel or 2.0 GHz AMD
• 1 GB RAM (XP), 2 GB RAM (Vista)
• 12 GB free HD space
• 1x or better DVD-ROM drive
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or better (7300, 7600 GS, and 8500 are below minimum system requirements)
• -or-
• ATI X1300 XT or better (X1300, X1300 Pro, X1600 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)

Now, ME isn't too old...it came out 05/2008...but if your current system can't handle that, good luck playing anything released around 2007-current.

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Several benchmarks show that running XP on a modern system makes current games run faster.

However, XP doesn't support DirectX 10 or 11...without the newest DirectX, your game won't be at its best if it was designed to run on 10 or 11...

And finally, if your system is older than 7 years, it's going to have the old Intel 478 (or one of AMD's 1000's of older sockets)...and those CPUs just aren't fast enough. You'd need a new Mobo, CPU, RAM, videocard, and a new PSU....so basically, a completely new system...

 

Oh sorry I misread your post. You arent asking whether you should upgrade your current system to Vista, you want to know, if you buy a new system, should it be Vista or XP?

If its a new system, I would probably say Vista, unless you have an old license for XP that you can use. And even then, if you want 4GBs of RAM (depends what you use your pc for), then Vista 64 is the way to go.

Vista 64 has come a long way since its first release, its now a lot more stable and a fair bit faster. Windows 7 is better, so if you can wait I would say just wait a few more months.

In practice, XP isnt really so much faster than Vista that you would sit up and say, "WOW, vista really sucks". Especially with modern graphics, they really are so fast it hardly matters. Windows 7 is equal to or faster than XP in games, it beats Vista handily.

 

Windows 7 is so sweet. Skip vista if you can. Vista however is not the nightmare it is said to be. More of a dream you do not remember.

 

Be warned with these guys, even when you say you don't have a clue about computers, they still like to give you all the technical details!

 

Silvery, they are actually helping out alot and i think i will wait for Win7. That means, entirely new pc. I'll keep the old one for my old stuff ...

Proteus_za - I think i kinda meant it both ways, i guess... sorry for not being clearer and thanks for the responses. Very helpful!

 

You've got until early 4th quarter to sometime before the end of the year before Win7 hits the shelves...so start saving for that shiny new PC now!