XP 64 or Vista 64?

[Mafelix]

Originally Posted by Phil999

I have the best rendering performance with Vista 64-bit. .

I agree, using maya 64 with vista 64 is great, and faster than xp64. I would say as much as 10 - 20% faster, and able to handle much more complex scenes due to the increase in ram handling.

FYI - my system is a 3.4 Extreme CPU on a intel 900 series board with 4gig ram, 5Drive 1500Gigs. Very stable with vista. 7900GTX 512M graphics card too.

There are a few things you have to do different with plugins beacause of vista folder setup, but they are easily worked around. (if you know what your are doing)

[zaxwerks]

i just see this thread :) so i share some experience here.

i use x64 for almost 2 years now (its early version and i disable all updates) all program and drivers working fine, and speed is absolutely better than xp 32.

its true what L_Abulafia says it handle the memory limit although some software doesnt take that much memory (but latest soft starting to exploit this feature) - sum up ...still the best (imho)

then i got x64 with sp2 ...with ie7 and bla2 updates, and speed are the same (maybe some improvement on security, but dont really need it)...but some software that use to work with early x64 doesnt work anymore (firewall and some other soft), so the only upside of this version is u get the 'latest' M$ windows.

next i got a copy of ultimate vista x64(trial)..its surely fast!, the downside...hardly to find the drivers for the system (i try on 2 diff pc..old and new hardware..still hard to find..)maybe wait for a few weeks/months until hardware vendor release it.

current choice - xp x64 without service pack or update.
next choice - vista 64 (with all the driver installed, and maybe disable all the fancy display and unnecessary services,)

vista 64 is faster because its true 64 bit..since x64 only emulate it...im not really sure how to describe it..i just read it on some tech forum...now that i see the different, i believe it :)

hope it helps