Windows 7 or 8

[lee n. field]

My first computer

I'm glad those days are past.

[Tallpine]

IIRC, I was in the DP dept 1973/1974 and then I left that and went "native" for a few decades.

Didn't really mess about with computers again until 1991++ when I went to college.

[Hawkmoon]

I've had a Commodore Vic 20, a TI 99, a Radio Shack TRS-80, and whatever Radio Shack's first IBM-PC clone was, with MS-DOS 2.10. Those were the days. The first computer I bought new was a CompuAdd AT clone, with 512K of RAM and a whopping 20 MB hard drive. When I bought it, I was sure I'd never live long enough to fill up a 20 MB hard drive.

Hah!

CompuAdd was based in Texas and was pretty much a direct competitor of Dell. I never quite understood how it was that Dell succeeded where CompuAdd managed to implode within a very few years.

[Perd Hapley]

If money's so tight they can't buy a larger hard drive, then they probably aren't buying a new copy of Windows (hint, a full install CD for Windows costs more than a new hard drive).  They're probably sticking to XP (or 95, I hear it's teh bomb).

Chris

I got my Windows for cheap. Some student deal. I'd still pay for the OS, and cheap out on the hard drive. I like Win 7 that much. Some of us don't need that large of a drive. I've been using the same 250 GB HHD as a media drive for the past two builds. I'm not even using half of it. If I bought a drive, I'd get a small SSD, as a system drive, just for better performance.

I don't know. Maybe there really aren't that many like me out there. Probably not enough for Microsoft to care about.

[bedlamite]

Maybe there really aren't that many like me out there.

Good thing 

[Levant]

My latest Win 7 build has 16GB of Ram with a 240GB SSD. Southbridge chipset.

Somebody asked me in 1991 how much RAM they should put in their computer.  I told them $200 worth.  Someone asked me last week how much RAM they should put in their computer.  I told them $200 worth.  And I was asked dozens of times in between and the answer has always been the same.

Sure you can operate with less; I started with 4MB in my first W95 machine.  Sure, you can run Vista on 2GB or W7 on 4GB but why would you?

[Perd Hapley]

I put this machine together in 2011, I think. I bought 8 G for it, and I'm pretty sure it was a whole let less than $200. Maybe mid-double-digits?

A reasonable amount of RAM is going to depend a whole lot on the intended use, isn't it?

[Levant]

I'm sure it does.  But the point remains the same.

A quick check at Newegg shows 16GB from 122 to 150 - go with the 150.  The next step, 32GB, would be twice that.  Since there's not a reasonable memory at 200 I suppose you could round down or up.  The point is that the right amount of memory remains about the same price.

You probably should not have taken my comment to mean that it was to the penny.

[Gewehr98]

Having survived the migration from Windows 7 to Windows 8 relatively intact, I'd have to echo going with the latter now.

Windows 8.1 is out this fall as a free upgrade, and it's really no big deal to make Windows 8 act like Windows 7.  I particularly like how it handles virtualization.

As much as I liked Windows 7, the successor is actually growing on me.  If you have a Windows 7 machine, I'd leave it for now.

If you're building or buying a new one, you should consider Windows 8.

[AZRedhawk44]

I'm sure it does.  But the point remains the same.

A quick check at Newegg shows 16GB from 122 to 150 - go with the 150.  The next step, 32GB, would be twice that.  Since there's not a reasonable memory at 200 I suppose you could round down or up.  The point is that the right amount of memory remains about the same price.

You probably should not have taken my comment to mean that it was to the penny.

Disagree, unless you're a damned-hard-using power user.

Most apps out there are still 32 bit apps.  Yes, the OS is 64 bit.  But each app will mostly have a memory limit of 2GB per instance.

Microsoft STRONGLY recommends that users stick to 32 bit office even in the 2013 product line unless they have a specific need for the 64 bit edition of Office.  Even if the only version of Windows 8 out there is a 64 bit edition.

Not sure if the Adobe photo/video suite is up to 64 bit computing yet.  That's probably one of the few areas that support 64 bit as an alternate edition.  Visual Studio.  Database engines.  Entire Virtual Machines (OS within an OS).  Things like that.  That's major power user territory.

Your games?  Pretty much all 32 bit.  They gotta cater to Win XP, Win Vista, Win 7 and Win8.  Too many 32 bit editions out there.

That means that even though your OS can use all that RAM... it's gotta be able to assign it to either I/O buffers (in the case of file/print/database services) or to actual applications.  And 32-bit apps on 64 bit platforms still only use 2GB RAM max.

So, you can have 3 major sumbitch apps consuming 2GB RAM simultaneously on an 8GB system, and still have 2GB left over for the OS to retain stability.

I've yet to see the desktop user that merits more than 5-6GB.  Most get by wonderfully with 4GB.  Unskilled users are unimpaired with 2GB on a Win7 system and a lowly i3 processor.

[CNYCacher]

I put this machine together in 2011, I think. I bought 8 G for it, and I'm pretty sure it was a whole let less than $200. Maybe mid-double-digits?

A reasonable amount of RAM is going to depend a whole lot on the intended use, isn't it?

If I wasn't so into photography, I could be you.

[mtnbkr]

Sure you can operate with less; I started with 4MB in my first W95 machine.  Sure, you can run Vista on 2GB or W7 on 4GB but why would you?

While I wouldn't *choose* 4gb for a fresh Win7 build, I've run multiple Win7 installs on 4gb.  Three laptops (two for work) and a desktop.  They all work fine.  As long as you're just doing normal desktop-type work, there's no issue.  Now, on my own desktop, I have 8gb, but I rarely get close to using it.  I mainly went with 8 "just because" and because I do run VMs from time to time and sometimes set up virtual lab environments.  The extra RAM is useful at those times.  Otherwise, I never need more than 4. 

Chris

[Ben]

If I were to SWAG it, in the current personal computing (including most business applications) environment,  I would say 50% of computer users can run fine on 4gig, and 80% will have more than they need with 8gig. There's probably 20% that need more RAM for specialized and scientific / engineering applications, modeling, VMs, etc.

 I'd say a good portion of computers out there with 16 or more gigs of RAM are people who bought a Ferrari to drive to the grocery store.

[bedlamite]

A reasonable amount of RAM is going to depend a whole lot on the intended use, isn't it?

ROFL. I hate to agree with Fistful on anything, but you guys are talking about spending almost as much for memory as I'm considering for most of a PC. System Monitor in Ubuntu 10.04 says I don't even use half the 2 gig I have now.

I'm looking at getting something like this soon and re-purposing my current AMD64X2/2gig as a dedicated CNC mill controller, and I'm seriously questioning the need for that much CPU, I may stick with one of the 65W models.

[AZRedhawk44]

Ben/Bedlamite:  I've got an AMD triple core phenom processor in my "big" machine at home, with 8GB RAM, along with a pair of Radeon 3900 series cards.  The only thing I have to wait for is HDD access speeds on it.  This box is now 5-6 years old, and I still cannot justify the funds to upgrade or replace it.

I never really even use it anymore, though.  I do my day to day work on an Asus i5 system with 6GB RAM and a 256GB SSD drive (as well as a smallish datacenter loaded up with several VM servers and SQL hardiron boxes), and most of my personal computing on a different Asus i5 laptop with 4GB RAM and a 700GB conventional HDD.

I'm in the process of repurposing that "big" box as a dedicated machine for my guitar room.  I'll probably remove 1 of the GPU's and do some judicious fan replacement to bring the noise level down.  It'll run some recording software, Rocksmith, and give me access to other net resources inside my little hobby cave. 

And that box is still overkill for that purpose.  The only reason I'm going with it, is I want a larger screen than my 17" laptop provides. 

[TechMan]

Latest computer build for the office:

32GB RAM 1600 ECC
4 core Xeon E5-1620 3.6GHz 10M
2GB AMD FirePro V5900
3 - 256GB SSD drives in a RAID 5 using a PERC H310 card

This configuration now lets our engineers move through AutoDesk Revite with ease.

[Gewehr98]

32 bit apps on 64 bit Windows 7/8 isn't really much of a problem, because of the WoW (Windows on Windows) interface. 

I've not seen any Microsoft warnings to install 32 bit Office on 64 bit Windows.  I'm running 64-bit Office 2013 on 64-bit Windows 8, no problems whatsoever.

The memory requirements for a given user do indeed vary on what the user intends to do with their machine.

I'm upgrading from 16Gb to 32Gb here, because Adobe Creative Suite 6 eats it up, as does 1080 video encoding. 

On a side note, Adobe CS also makes good use of the graphics processing power in your video card(s), a nice boost.

I want to bump each of my CPU cores to 4Gb each from the 2Gb they have now so I can do all the above moar faster. 

[AZRedhawk44]

32 bit apps on 64 bit Windows 7/8 isn't really much of a problem, because of the WoW (Windows on Windows) interface. 

I've not seen any Microsoft warnings to install 32 bit Office on 64 bit Windows.  I'm running 64-bit Office 2013 on 64-bit Windows 8, no problems whatsoever.

If you have apps that provide plug-ins to Microsoft Office, those plug-ins have to be written differently to interface with Office.  This is a challenge my company faces since we author several Office plug-ins (both Outlook and Word) for our application.


From MS:

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/ee681792%28v=office.15%29

Summary: Explains the benefits and drawbacks of deploying 64-bit Office, and why we recommend the 32-bit version of Office 2013 for most users.

I'm upgrading from 16Gb to 32Gb here, because Adobe Creative Suite 6 eats it up, as does 1080 video encoding. 

Do you happen to know if those apps are running in WoW as 32-bit, or as a true 64-bit app?  I'm wondering if the benefits you are seeing video encoding is just IO buffering.

[Gewehr98]

My Adobe CS6 is running in true 64 bit mode for those particular apps written for that wide a bus.

When you install the suite uneder a 64 bit OS, and there's a 32 bit app in the suite, it'll install both versions automatically.

Case in point, I can select either 32 or 64 bit Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator from my program menu to run. 

From what I can tell, Windows Media Encoder is running a full 64 bits wide when I produce videos. 

[Waitone]

techsupportforum.com is where I go for geek help.  The forum routinely fields questions regarding ram needs.  Advice is consistent.  Unless you are gaming, cad-ing or editing video 4 gig is sufficient.  My desktop XP unit runs 4 gig (2.8 gig in reality) and never came close of using it all.

Follow on question.  Does W7 or W8 allow full use of the first 4 gig.  I assume the answer is yes for 64 bit but not so much for 32 bit.

[Gewehr98]

Waitone, you're correct.  32-bit windows can't see past 4Gb, and more often than not barely gets past 3.25-3.5 Gb because of reserved memory issues.

That's a limitation of the 32-bit architecture, but it's not exclusive.

This Dell Latitude D820 I'm using right now is running 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium (good up to 16Gb), but due to the stupid Intel 945 Express chipset it can only utilize 3.25Gb of the 4Gb I have installed.   

[Tallpine]

[bedlamite]

Is that supposed to be a Baaaaaad joke?

[AZRedhawk44]

Waitone, you're correct.  32-bit windows can't see past 4Gb, and more often than not barely gets past 3.25-3.5 Gb because of reserved memory issues.

That's a limitation of the 32-bit architecture, but it's not exclusive.

This Dell Latitude D820 I'm using right now is running 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium (good up to 16Gb), but due to the stupid Intel 945 Express chipset it can only utilize 3.25Gb of the 4Gb I have installed.   

Sort-of correct, but not quite.

Win 7 32-bit is actually in certain circumstances a 36-bit OS.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg487503.aspx

http://superuser.com/questions/52275/how-can-i-enable-pae-on-windows-7-32-bit-to-support-more-than-3-5-gb-of-ram

I've only ever configured 32-bit servers to use Phyiscal Address Extensions (/PAE switch) and not done it to desktops... but the switch does work on WinXP through Win7 32-bit OS environments.

[Gewehr98]

AZRH44, I knew about PAE. 

It requires a kernel patch if you're running 32 bit Win 7 SP1.

I have a few IBM workstations around the house that are running Windows 7 Professional 32 bit. 

I may sacrifice one machine to that kernel patch to see if it'll allow the full 4Gb to be utilized, vs. 3.25Gb. 

And whether Microsoft Security Essentials will detect the patch as malware...