Xp vs Vista, and processor questions...

[UKbob]

How much faster is a "Viiv quad core processor Q6600 (2.2ghz, 1066fsb, 8mb cache)" 2 gigs ram - than a 3.4ghz P4 running xp with 2 gigs of ram.
In real terms?

Also, what are the advantages of home premuim vs ultimate on vista?

And just how stable is vista?

And er, how is vista different/better than xp?

[UKbob]

Cheers chaps. Very helpful and informative. I didnt realise software had to be written for quadcore in order for speed benefits to be reaped.

Going to upgrade anyway as (nearly every aspect of!) my P4 is throwing a wobbler, from the hard drive disk errors, to the slightly dodgy old graphics card, card readers, not enough USB ports, very noisy cooling fan (which I cant stand) ... the potential time needed to strip it down and fix it just isnt worth the downtime (workwise) of buying a new one. (In other words, a good excuse just to upgrade, I'll get the old one sorted and use that as a spare/storage dump)

With regards to what it is, and also stability, what is Vista? What ME was to 98 (worse, iirc!) or what xp was to 2k (worse again, at first) or is it an actual improvement and extention over what XP already is? Or is it a whole new entity as such?

And does anyone else remember Windows 97, or ever see it in use?

[UKbob]

Plotloss said:

UKbob said:

And does anyone else remember Windows 97, or ever see it in use?

3.1, 3.11, NT3.51, 95, NT4, 98, 98se, Me, 2000, XP, XPSP2, Vista

But not Windows 97...

I saw it once, genuine windows boot up screen badged as 97, and being told it wasnt complete. I dont remember the story (at all!) but I saw it running at a mates mates house, very geeky fatboy who had to have everything before everyone else, but never heard nor saw it in use again. The main feature I remember was the first instance of the auto power off feature which was later introduced, we all remember the orange "It is now safe to turn off your machine" post shutdown screen. I can only guess that praps it was a beta release which for some reason was a) strangely beta released and b) never seen again. I dont know.

[UKbob]

Plotloss said:

UKbob said:

Plotloss said:

UKbob said:

And does anyone else remember Windows 97, or ever see it in use?

3.1, 3.11, NT3.51, 95, NT4, 98, 98se, Me, 2000, XP, XPSP2, Vista

But not Windows 97...

I saw it once, genuine windows boot up screen badged as 97, and being told it wasnt complete. I dont remember the story (at all!) but I saw it running at a mates mates house, very geeky fatboy who had to have everything before everyone else, but never heard nor saw it in use again. The main feature I remember was the first instance of the auto power off feature which was later introduced, we all remember the orange "It is now safe to turn off your machine" post shutdown screen. I can only guess that praps it was a beta release which for some reason was a) strangely beta released and b) never seen again. I dont know.

Ahh, thats what 98 was going to be. The first beta releases were badged Windows 97.

Its all coming back now.

Interesting. Hard to believe that was 10 years ago.

[UKbob]

m12_nathan said:

You'll benefit from the multiple cores even running single threaded apps as the OS will use some intelligence in assigning thread affinity so where as before you'd have a single threaded app taking up all the cpu and you couldn't do anything else, now it'll max out one core and you still have 3 to support other processes.

How do these cores manage data, are they each designed to do certain types of things better than the others, or are they all the same, merely directed to max out independently so as not to grind machines to a halt?

I got the impression (at least tried to, probably failed mind) that when one core was working, if the others were idle, they didnt chip in at max power to try and make the app in use lightening fast, or is not the case?

[UKbob]

Update on Vista
Love it, Looks great. Nice and intuitive...

It is, however, THE most appallingly pathetic OS in terms of stability, ever. Not that anyone here didnt know that, but it really is terrible. Vista itself has never once crashed, in fact it seems rather good at not falling over itself. But the applications all do, and frequently. Outlook up to 5 times a day. So far more frequently than ME as I recall, its one hell of a bastard of an operating system in that respect, which makes it a bit strange. All the more reason to abandon ship.