Window7 Guest Trial worth or keep XP?

[rivrbyte]

Hey fellow puterheads !

I know it's all pretty much personal preference, on whether you are a gamer ( I'm not) or someone who likes to dabble in video editing using the Pinnacle Studio 14 Ultimate, and photoshop.
I have XP Home ED (32bit) which only utilizes 3.3DDR2 of the installed RAM on my MSI-MS-7345 Mainboard, along with a Q6600 Quad Core Intel 2.4 CPU.

I would like to expand, or double my RAM to the max 8GB DDR2 that my MSI board will top out at.

I don't think this system is that antiquated in my mind, but some, if not most here on these boards will tell me it's time to build a faster system with the faster i7 CPU, a new MoBo, faster and bigger memory than my present Corsair Twin 2X PC6400.

It took me along time to hang with win98, before going over to the other side with XP, and I kicked myself for the longest time asking why I didn't make the switch faster, and now, after the demise of Vista, of which I never took that bait, and glad I did not, now Win7 comes out in both 32 & 64 Bit versions, I find myself on the fence.

Maybe I should stay where I'm at for now, suffering through the 3.3GB ram, or get the Win7 Pro64, and use the XP mode. I have been told that switching from XP to Win7 will make my hardware and software perform much better.

Soooo, I was curious if anyone has tried the Win7 Guest trial edition and actually made the switch from XP to Win7 64, noticing better performance? OR maybe wait until I need a new Mobo, new CPU, then add the memory then.

Remember, I am not a gamer, just like video editing and burning, and editing my digital Hi-Res photos in Photoshop.

Nvidia GeForce 8600GT / MSI MS-7345 Platinum Mobo / 3.3DDR2 Ram / Intel Core Quad Q6600 2.4 / XP Home 32

[Train]

Might want to check out when support ends for XP.
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecyc...=en-gb&C2=1173

Since you have a Quadcore and wish to use 8 GB or ram, switch to Win 7 64bit as 32 bit is limit to 4 GB and usable amount will be about 3.2 GB .

[Steve R Jones]

What do you use your pc for?

3.3 gigs of ram for Win XP is generally consider wayyy overkill and odds are you're only "needing" a fraction of that amount of ram.