RE: OT-ish: New PC questions

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
clax01011971
Sent: 31 October 2009 14:59
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] OT-ish: New PC questions

I'm looking to buy a new Dell PC and I have a few questions that I hope
some
of you guys can help me with.

1) Dell seem to have started switching the vast majority of their Windows 7
machines to 64 bit, is 64 bit a 'safe' way to go these days?

I think so now. IME it seems most software vendors have finally woken up
&
started supporting 64 bit pproperly. I've been running 64 bit exclusively
on
my desktop machine for about the last year-18 months or so.


2) I'm looking at a quad core, is there any point in spending the extra on
one of the new core processors? (The most heavy duty applications that I'll
run are Visual Studio and SQL Server).

IMO the core processors are *very* good - albeit they come in a bewildering
selection of modeals & features. I think the newer core i7 processors
are
apparently even better, but I don't have direct experience of those yet,
and
I'm still perfectly well server by the current crop of core-2's of which I
currently run about half-a-dozen.


3) I'm also looking to run some virtual PCs on the machine now and then, am
I right to assume that running a 64bit os makes no difference to what
virtual machine os I can run?

Sort of... it depends on a number of factors. First point of advice is if
you intend to run virtual machines, make  SURE you choose a chip with the
intel-VT extensions, - not all of them have this feature, and it will
greatly enhance the performance of your virtualised machines, as well as
effect what combinations of features the virtualisation product will
support.





------------------------------------