I have a Dell Precision Workstation with Dual Xeon processors currently running WinXP Pro SP2. I'm interested in hearing user experiences upgrading their OS to the 64 bit version of WinXP Pro.

Bud James
North Wales, PA

Hi Bud,

I currently have winXP x64 running on a dual opteron system, my only problem atm is that there is no color calibration for it, though eyeOne is saying they should have someting in the new year, otherwise, after six month, I have drivers for everything and it is rock solid

Machine
2x Opteron 250 (waiting for dual core)
8gb ram
Tyan S2895 mainboard w/scsi
2x Nvidia Quadro FX 3400
a mix of SCSI U320 drives
2x 24" Dell 2405 screens
2x Pioneer DVD 109
Media reader
floppy (yes, still got one of those)

i think that is it!

only thing is color calibration and I can't wait!!

Henrik

Thanks for the feedback, however, without color calibration, WinXP Pro x64 is not a good update for me considering that I do a lot of Photoshop and color printing with my system.

Bud James
North Wales, PA

Hey Bud,

Recently a computer tech buddy of mine gave me the opprotunity to bench test particular files I'd created against a vast array of PC hardware configurations and OS variations. The PSD files were tested in Photoshop CS2 and the raw files in Capture One Pro v3.7.

Attached is the PDF of tabled results. Systems #6 (XP Pro) and #11 (XP 64bit) will be of particular interest to your enquiry.

Das Bosun



[quote=budjames,Nov 18 2005, 08:22 AM]
I have a Dell Precision Workstation with Dual Xeon processors currently running WinXP Pro SP2. I'm interested in hearing user experiences upgrading their OS to the 64 bit version of WinXP Pro.

[quote=Das Bosun,Dec 4 2005, 08:22 AM]
Hey Bud,

Recently a computer tech buddy of mine gave me the opprotunity to bench test particular files I'd created against a vast array of PC hardware configurations and OS variations. The PSD files were tested in Photoshop CS2 and the raw files in Capture One Pro v3.7.

Attached is the PDF of tabled results. Systems #6 (XP Pro) and #11 (XP 64bit) will be of particular interest to your enquiry.

Das Bosun
[quote=budjames,Nov 18 2005, 08:22 AM]
I have a Dell Precision Workstation with Dual Xeon processors currently running WinXP Pro SP2. I'm interested in hearing user experiences upgrading their OS to the 64 bit version of WinXP Pro.

[/quote]

Das,

Good stuff. It seems like the speed increase for x64 is a no brainer upgrade once. But, I'll have to wait until Antivirus and monitor color calibration software is available before I make the change.

I'm using Monaco EZ Color and their Optix colorimeter. The company says that they will not have a x64 compatible product until next year.

Thanks for the info.

Bud James
North Wales, PA

Systems #6 and #11 vary too much in hardware specs for any conclusion to be drawn about the effectiveness of Windows XP Pro x64 on performance.

Andrew

Yes, but #11 is close enough to my Dell Workstation to make understand that it is about 50% faster in most operations than the 32-bit WinXP Pro that I'm currently running in most operations.

Once Norton Internet Security Antivirus and Monaco EZ Color have x64 compatible upgrades, I will probably make the switch.

Bud James

Agreed, but I referred to System #6 because SHORT OF USING XP 64bit, #6 gave some of the best all round performance results from XP pro. This is despite the fact that System #6 is only using twin 2.4gHz Xeon processors (many of the other test systems are utilizing twin 3.6gHz Xeon Processors). My tech buddy and I put #6's overall performance down to a combination of the Promise Fastrack PDC20378 onboard RAID contoller and the Intel i875P chipset.

If you'd like to compare a system that has the same harware configuration, but with less RAM (this is because it's possible to use up to 8gb of RAM in a XP 64bit system), look at System #10 (XP pro with 2gb RAM). For the similar Xp pro set up, 4gb RAM and a different hard drive/RAID configuration see Systerm #12.

Das Bosun