Can Vegas run on Quad Core?

[Paul Cascio]

Originally Posted by Paul Kepen

PS: Right now I'm thinking of a quad core Intel Q9450 on an Asus P5Q premium mobo. It's only DDR2, but it sounds like DDR3 is a bit fussy to deal with, and all the mobo's that have it are expensive and a bit skimpy in I/O ports, etc. Does the DDR3 really make that much difference?

I just went through the same decision. I'd recommend just getting a Q6600 for about $199. I also bought an Asus PK5 Pro motherboard for about $150 , and 4G of OCZ memory for just under $100. All were from Newegg.

[Garrett Low]

If you're going to be getting a new MOBO anyway I would get the Q9450. Better architecture, newer instruction sets, and a much cooler running CPU. The Q6600 is a very good chip but from my exprience the Q9450 accepts OC'ing a little better. If you're not going to upgrade your MOBO by all means go with the Q6600.

As far as DDR2 vs. DDR3, the real world tests have shown that DDR3 can't yet justify the added cost (even though it's coming down a lot). I'd rather get Vista 64bit and spend the extra cash and get 8GB of memory. That would be about the same cost as 4 BG of DDR3.

Almost every hardware manufaturer has 64bit drivers out now so you might as well get the 64bit OS.

Garrett

[John Miller]

Originally Posted by Paul Kepen

Thanks John,
Is there any advantage to Vista Ultimate 64, vs regular Vista 64?
As you say above, the Ultimate edition includes both 64 and 32 bit version. But, since everything works good with Vista 64, is there any need for Vista 32? Do you set that up in a dual-boot configuration? The only advantage I could see, would be for old software that V64 does not support.

Do you mean "Home Premium" for regular? If so, there isn't really that much difference between them. Here's a useful comparison list for all the versions:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...s/default.aspx

Essentially, Ultimate contains the business-related features (in Vista Business) that aren't in Home Premium.

I don't know if 32- and 64-bit versions for Home Premium come on the same DVD - I suspect that they do. However, you can only install one (the same product key is used) so dual booting isn't allowed. Since I have an MSDN subscription, I don't encounter the retail limits etc so can't give any info about that.

The only software that Vista 64 wouldn't support but Vista 32 would is ancient 16-bit software. Software written for Win3.x, Win9x etc that directly accesses hardware won't work on either (just as with all NT flavors of Windows).

I'd go with Vista 64 and - as others suggest - put in a lot of RAM (8GB) to take advantage of Vista 64's larger address space.