Hi to all, your expertise much appreciated !

Hi everyone, this is my first post on the Vista forums.

I have to say, i've been reading the forums for a while before signing up.

I'm a mac user who's moved to windows! the main reason was that the engineering software I run isn't availiable for the mac and I got hacked off with two machines sat on a KVM. I figured, I spend so much time on the winbox that I may as well go the whole hog - to the point I actually run a windows mobile samsung omnia as well!

Anyway, after a long while, I've taken the plunge and bought Vista Ultimate retail SP1.

I'm running XP on an intel badaxe D975XBX2 mobo with a E6700 cpu.

For the vista install I've got an Asus P5Q-Pro board with 8gb ram. I was looking at a Q9550 cpu.

And i'm running an Nvidia Quadro 4500 card - for all my image and 3d modelling work.

I have the following storage: 2x 500gb WD (new)

and on the XP install I have an 80gb drive for OS and apps, and a 250gb drive for user's 'My Documents' and music n' stuff.

This effectively gives me four SATA drives to play with.

How would you run this?

I was looking at the possibility of the following:

Vista Ultimate x64 with two drives in raid 0 for OS and apps. the 80gb drive for user files and the 250 for music/video/image storage and as a scratch disc.

or

Vista Ultimate x64 with x1 drives i for OS and apps. x1 drive for user files and the x1 for music/video/image storage x1 as a scratch disc or backup disc.

Now for my final dilemma, do I bypass Vista entirely and go straight for the beta of W7?

Many thanks in advance for your thoughts - and special thanks for the link to the resolution manager - it was the one thing that really bugged me coming from a mac, where each user's resolution settings can be different (my girlfriend has bad eyesight, so generally runs a lower res).

Dont bypass vista. The W7 beta is free now, but you will need to purchase it when it comes out in order to use it past then. Amazing Video Card btw.

Definately go with x64 bit. With 8 gigs of RAM, you need it.

As for the drives, lets see. I dont think the User Files need more than 80 gigs. I dont actually know how RAID works, but it seems unneccessary in this case. Though i like the First idea.

~Lordbob

Hi saverio, welcome to the board.
Nice CPU and GPU.
The first option seems working nicely. However, you may not need to RAID 0 for speed and sacrifice in reliability since now day HDDs with 32m of ram such as the one show in link below are very fast. It is just a bit slower then the Velociaptors. So use one for OS and applications and one for backups.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB Hard Drive - 7200RPM, 32MB, SATA-300, OEM ST3500320AS at TigerDirect.com

Keep us inform and have an excellent experience.

Bruce