Windows is already set to take advantage of multiple CPU's without doing that.

What I've been contemplating of late is whether SSD storage can replace mass IT storage, with RAID arrays, all that.   Personal SATA drives are pretty doggone cheap compared to SSD nowadays, but not so on the IT farms.  The IT guys say a personal TB hard drive would only last several days if it was, say, on the back-end of a web server farm.  The constant seeks and accesses would kill it.  They have special enterprise RAID arrays to handle those applications, and they are not cheap.

But SSD doesn't have any mechanical parts.  Seems to me they would crash a lot less.  The memory designers just need to budget more for hot-electron/electromigration weardown (which would mean slower memory speed).  Even then, it's still faster seek time than a HD, and you can still RAID array it, say, 2X.   With 32GB SSD costing around $200, that should run a TB around $15000 for a 2X RAID array.  That's not bad at all, by enterprise standards.

Correct. It should be unchecked by default, which should automatically detect how many CPUs/cores you have.

Would striping really help a SSD? I thought the whole point of striping was to overcome some of the deficiencies of a mechanical disk, which a SSD would not have. I could be wrong, though.

I would agree that having more RAM will yield a much more substantial boost than switching to solid state drives. RAM is so much faster, and with SuperFetch in Vista and Windows 7, it'll try too keep as much in RAM as possible so you don't have to go back to the hard drive as often. Staying in RAM as much as possible and avoiding the hard drive is always the fastest.

It wouldn't be "striping", per se, but still, the principle is that you have redundant drives.  SSD's should fail a lot less, though, so it makes less sense except for very mission-critical applications, or where the SSD would be accessed 24/7, constantly.

I actually got the tip from a 'tweak Vista' site (can't remember which one offhand) but the tweak is supposed to improve overall system/CPU performance by more evenly distributing the workload between the individual cores... well that's what was claimed.

Hmmm, it didn't affect anything in Vista 32 bit, but I'm now curious as to whether this tweak is responsible for the higher CPU use in x64.?  Well so far nothing else has resolved it.... will reset it back to default, reboot and see if that makes a difference.

*EDIT*  Nope, unchecking the cores option did not work... if anything the CPU was running higher... idling in the 30% - 40% region, peaking at 90% - 100%.

However, I uninstalled the AMD Dual Core Optimizer to see what would happen and I'm getting normal to average CPU readings... damned piece of junk.  It may have had a minimal effect on speed but nothing to write home about.  I'm not noticing any marked slowing since it was uninstalled, so it not something I would recommend to boost performance.

I just put an order in today for a i7 920, with the gigabite ud5 m/b, evga gtx 280 superclocked and 3x2gb tri-channel RAM.......my days of sins lagging are over soon, this game at max wont blink.  The next step will be to dual boot with vista 64bit as yes it's good stuff (and my xp 32bit can only use 4 gb of ram anyway)...but as good as 64 bit is, I'll wait for ram to drop as there are 6 slots so I'll just add to the existing 6gb.  Final step will to be add a 2nd gtx 280 as sli but damn...it's still expensive too, one's enough for now....

I lag late game but hosting should be a breeze soon, I'm very excited....

I dunno - it does seem to do a good job of distributing the load without any tweaks. I've played around with all kinds of stuff, and the only really good way to get an unbalanced workload is to force it that way.

To be honest - that is a "more money than sense" system you're building there. All of the components are simply overkill for anything you might want to do with it.

If you're getting 6 GB of RAM, you need 64 bits, no question. You can't use more than about 3.5 GB or so of it with a 32 bit OS. My advice is to start using 64 bit Vista right away.

A GTX 280 for sins...  a 8800GT would be overkill...  

As noted above, when I set it back to default I noticed my CPU readings actually went up some.  However, since uninstalling that damned AMD optimiser, and running at default with occasional high peaks when opening priggies, I've reset it to 2 cores and find CPU usage to be somewhat improved over default settings.

Well if he doesn't want to run NASA, the CIA and FBI from home it might be a case of overkill... but hey, if they were giving them away, I wouldn't knock one or two of 'em back.

yeah I only have so much money to work with, the idea is to be expandable and keep smoking for a few years.  I'll get vista in a couple of months but I figure building the hardware so I can upgrade over the next 4-5 years as needed and stay decent is better than rebuying from scratch every 2 years.  Between overclocking options, adding ram and maybe dual vid in the future, it should be easily done....but only when needed and the prices come down.  The system including a good gaming case, 1tb barracuda, upgraded heat sync and the other normal extras is like $2500 incl. tax/shipping and it's my business PC as well.  I might add 3 500gig barracudas for RAID 5 today, theie only $84 each......64mb o/s can wait a couple months.

Oh and by the way, yes I know this is overkill for sins, it not just for sins lol......

This may sound like a stupid question but surely I'm not the only one who doesn't know.

How would one upgrade to 64 bit Vista if they wanted to?  I'm currently running 32 Vista (Home I think), do I need to buy a 64 bit version?  Can I buy an upgrade?

If I have 2 partitions, 1 with the OS and data/installed programs etc and 1 partition with the restore directory that came with the Laptop (I'm guessing to install Vista again if I need) do I need to format both when going to 64 bit or can I just format the OS partition?  Is there a guide out there with step by step instructions?  I'm far from computer illiterate but I have no idea of the impact of upgrading a 32 bit system.

Sorry Haree78, you will have to reinstall completly. You cannot upgrade as the O/S architecture is different.

Too answer you other question you only need to format the drive with the O/S on it. However you will lose all your data. There is no need to reformat the recovery partition, infact I would recomend to leave it along considering the fact that you are working on a laptop and 64 bit drivers for it may not be available.

However before going to 64 bit you should ask youself a few questions, you said you were using a laptop. Now do you plan on going over 4 gigs of ram? About 90% of all laptops right now will not reconize more than 4 gigs of ram because most only have 2 upgrade slots. This means you would have to buy 2 4 gig chips, but again I doubt the laptops motherboard will reconize it. Second you have to worry about all the necessary drivers for you laptop to run 64 bit windows. The drivers to run hardware in 64 bit are much different than 32 bit. So check your laptop manufacturers site to see if they have 64 bit drivers available, if they don't, I wouldn't do it.

Lastly, your using a laptop, unless this is a super high end gaming laptop, you will not see hardly any benefits of going over to 64 bit. 64 bit allows the system to reconize more than a max addrassable memory space of 4 gigs, and does make the system run faster (but that depends on the hardware make up of the system). However if you have a laptop with only 3 gb ram, then leave it alone. If you do have 4 gigs of RAM and only a 32 bit system, your likely losing most of that 4th, but is it worth all that possible trouble just for that last 4th gig?  Most games will do fine with only 3, yes with more ram you can disable your page file completly, but on a laptop I wouldn't think you should be so worried about performance. Not trying be rude or anything just want give you the information and possibly save you some needlessly spent muala.

If the laptop was going to be faster form having 64 bit Vista, it probably would have came with 64 bit Vista.

Having questions or anything further on it, let know or just ask.

(Sorry had to edit for all my grammar and spelling mistakes)

Thanks for the info Quantum.

I have an XPS 1730 Dell gaming laptop, pretty high end, it has 4GB of RAM.  I'm not sure going to 64 bit would have a massive impact but I'm willing to go with it if I get longer life out of this machine before I need to upgrade.  I run everything so far on max settings including the new love of my life Left 4 Dead.  I'm pretty confident I can get 64 bit drivers for the laptop because of how new it is.

But more importantly, do I need to buy an entirely new 64 bit Vista license?  Am I entitled to download an upgrade for free or is there a cheap upgrade option?

I believe this will get you there; although there might be a page that will get you there faster, it doesn't appear to be as easy to find.  For one, the direct Windows Marketplace link appears to have gone dead when they remodeled it.

I checked for you since you said it was an xps 1730, and yes there are 64 bit Vista drivers for it so your all set. The video drivers are not hosted on the dell site, but Nvidia driver installer is universal, unlike ATIs so your good to go.  What I would do first however before you install 64 bit is download all your drivers and put them on a thumb/flash/USB drive, just in case vista doesn't reconize the nic on the motherboard with generic drivers. Then install the motherboard/chipset drivers, then the video, then sound, and then whatever is after that.

Happy formatting!

Quantum Dragon

The more recent editions of Vista have 'Upgrade Anytime' in the 'Welcome Center'... if you have this it should give you the info you need to upgrade your current OS and the ability to purchase online.

You can get more info at Microsoft's website. It has a link to begin the order process for 64 bit versions of their OS at the bottom of the page.

You will need to repartition and/or reformat the drive, sorry. Backup your data first.

I personally did the upgrade when I built a new computer, so I had a clean drive to put it on.

So when Vista came out and everyone was complaining about it expanding to fill the space, actually pre-caching was a great move with very real usability benefits?

I must confess, I'd gone along with the received wisdom that "except maybe for Crysis or graphics editing", 4GB was more than I could possibly find a use for. I even felt I was being a touch extravagant when I bought it, although not as much as splashing out for a quad core (basically for SupCom).

So, at £10 a GB currently, RAM is cheap as chips. Probably be cheaper than chips soon enough what with all the food price inflation. Given that to me Crysis is Just Another Shooter and I'm no artist, would I see a benefit from a move to 8GB? Also, do people see DDR2 going up or down in price from where it is?

Pfft you add in a small rechargeable battery for the downtime

Yes. A program in memory is going to load and run much faster than one sitting on the hard drive.

Yes and no. For basic applications, it won't make much of a difference except make the load times a bit faster.

BUT:

• It still helps. It may not have a huge effect on your overall productivity, but it is nice to see Word 2007 load instantly rather than waiting a few seconds.
• Multimedia applications are becoming more popular. More people than ever have cell phones that take pictures and most digital cameras are capable of recording video. YouTube and Flikr are very popular. The demand for photo and video editing is going up.
  
• Games are using more memory than ever. More and more games are demanding higher and higher resolution textures. Higher resolution textures need more memory. Stardock has repeatedly said that it will be creating 64 bit games in the future. Crysis was only the beginning. I can guarantee you you'll be seeing more "Crysis" like games in the future. Even games that are not the FPS genre are going to be using more memory.
  

As long as mass production of DDR2 continues, it will go down in price. But if it's as cheap as chips, I'd say go ahead and buy as much as your motherboard can handle.

I'm quite happy with my XP with 4GB (or 3.2GB as it is) RAM, so I'm holding out on going 64-bit until Windows 7 comes. Can't stay 32 bit forever, and from what I've read MS learned a bit from the mistakes they did with Vista that annoyed me enough to not upgrade it on my gaming rig.

Hoping that we'll have some decently fast, big and affordable SSD disks when that time comes too. Why pick 1 if you can have both?

Heck, I'll probably build an entirely new rig when the time comes, since CPU and MBs should be better and/or cheaper than the i7 stuff that is currently entering the market.

I love having the 8 GB RAM. I can currently run an editor for oblivion, that essentially loads the entire games contents into memory, load and play the game while the editor is running (having to quite to save changes of course). On top of that, have internet explorer downloading a new 100mb mod, while listening to streaming music over the internet while all the while defragging one of the harddrives im not using.

I have disabled disk caching completly and it works great.

I can even load up a sins saved game where there are me and 5 AI players with full fleet size, then load up oblivion or Crysis and play them at the same time, Its great. Admittedly my frame rate will drop a little in Crysis but is so fast originally thats its still quite playable. However thats more so the video card capability on that effects that  as I am still not using more than 5 or 6 GB RAM.

I have never used up all 8 GB of my RAM, but I am sure someone who does video editing, or sound editing probably would. Or maybe running server apps in the back ground while playing an intensive game might do it too.

As for solid state disk, their read time is great, their write time sucks, so if you wanted one to just dump your paging file on, like I originally thought of doing, it would actually slow things down. Also if you check the specs on most SSD their seek time and read is actually slower than the 10,000 RPM raptors. So as of right now, I am staying away from them. Durability wise they are superioir and read time vs most "normal" harddrives they are better. For "enthusiast" speed however they are lacking.

Which cache? Completely disabling the OS disk cache would mean that any application that writes to disk will pause while the write is taking place. It would be painfully slow. I'm guessing you just turned off SuperFetch. I don't think you completely disabled caching.

This part is true. That, plus the limited write cycles means you'd kill the drive quickly.

The fastest Raptor is 4.2 ms, and SSDs are in the 0.02 ms range. They have no moving parts, which means they don't have to wait for a head to move.

And don't believe the "3 Gb/s" listed on any mechanical drive. That's the speed of the bus from the buffer, not the speed the platters can actually read. A drive with a 16 MB cache can maintain 3 GB/s for 0.04 seconds. After that, it's much slower.

In any case, RAM will always beat drives. In 1998, most types of RAM had 50 ns = 0.00000005s access time. Adding more RAM will beat any amount of hard drive tweaking by a tremendous margin.

Unless you're editing video, drive speeds are rather moot in my opinion. For me a disk is just permanent storage, and I prefer to keep my software in RAM as much as possible for maximum performance.

That's only for the boot-up.  It doesn't affect the system once it's running.

The trick with multi-core systems is that the SOFTWARE needs to be written multi-threaded to take advantage of it.  Therefore, for most people 2 cores is plenty as one core is busy with you currently active program while the other is handling OS background tasks, widgets, your music player, etc.

Those of us who are using 4 or 8 core machines are doing so because we have high end 3D software or video editing software, for example, that actually can peg all of our cores to the maximum when rendering.  For anyone else, 4+ cores would be overkill and it would make more sense to spend the same money on a dual core CPU with a higher clock speed than a 4 core with a lower clock speed.

BTW, you'll find that 99% of windows programs are single-threaded.