Windows 2000 on an Athlon 64 system, good idea or bad idea?

[Des]

I am thinking about updating my current system to a Athlon 64 processor and MB after the new year but I am wondering if I will limit functionality if I stay with W2K (which I prefer) or need to upgrade to XP to reap the full benefit?

Any insights?

--dES

[Greg87]

I ran Windows 2000 on several "modern" computers without a hitch. Up until about a month ago I ran an Athlon 64 3200+ with a gig of ram on Windows 2000 SP4. I had no issues whatsoever.

However, just keep in mind if you plan on running a SATA hard drive that there may be several issues with the newer drivers attempting to run on Windows 2000 when they are designed for Windows XP or Vista...

-Greg

[Des]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the response. I guess my concern is that I won't see any real speed increase or that 64 bit enabled programs wont take full advantage.

--dES

[jagabo]

Athlon 64 processor... with W2K... concern is that I won't see any real speed increase or that 64 bit enabled programs wont take full advantage.

You won't be running 64 bit programs at all.

[Greg87]

Athlon 64 processor... with W2K... concern is that I won't see any real speed increase or that 64 bit enabled programs wont take full advantage.

You won't be running 64 bit programs at all.

Correct. At this time there is no point in using 64-bit applications at this time. Poor driver availability for the 64-bit operating systems, especially Windows, doesn't really exist. Stay 32-bit!

[painkiller]

Des,

I've been running Win2K with Service Pack 4 on two PCs with ASUS motherboards and AMD 64 CPUs for awhile.

I think you will like the combination. I certainly do.

[Capmaster]

I'd still be using Win2K if it wasn't for the driver support fading. It was a great OS 8)

You shouldn't have any problems running it on that CPU.

[cdubya]

no you won't see a speed increase atleast not a significant enough one to really matter from 2k to xp regardless and if you think the support for 2k drivers is weak then you really don't want to look at xp-64bit the drivers are really lacking there.. i have a printer that i purchased no more than 3 months ago that doesn't have drivers. 32-bit apps that you use under 64-bit run slower under 64 than they do the standard forms as they have to be emulated to run and emulation uses more ram and processor. i'd love to be able to make use of xp 64 as when i have run it along w/ 64-bit apps it was hella fast but that's the only thing holding me back really is my printer a Canon MF3111 Scanner/Copier/Printer. There's probably a way to get around it though someone who has a hardware programming background could probably do it in no time flat.

[winifreid]

If your comp specs are up to date, I don't think yo can get a much faster chip than what you have without getting a new motherboard. The 64 will not be an advantage with 2000; I have both. But it will not be a disadvantage either. I have not had any problems with sata and 2000.

[Des]

Thanks all for the replies.

I will continue with my plan to upgrade the mother board and CPU this coming year. I'm going to stick with W2K and then I can at least feel prepared if something better (ha ha) comes along.

I suppose those apps. that do take advantage of the Athlon 64processor will run faster so that's a good enough thing for me!

Probably going to go with either ASUS or MSI, any thoughts? NVDEA chipset or VIA? ATI PCI-E or NVDEA PCI-E?

Sorry for the more questions, but I guess I like the attention

--dES

[painkiller]

Best of luck.

By the way, I compared my divx encoding time between my Intel P4 with Intel 850 motherboard (1.4GHz clock) against the same file I encoded on one of my ASUS motherboards with the AMD 64 cpu (2.2Ghz clock and 2000Mts front side bus).

The AMD finished one hour beofre the Intel.

Likely not a fair comparison. The two aren't even close in specs, but considering what I was changing from - what a time advantage.

As another by the way, my second ASUS AMD system will soon be running Linux (64-bit version of SUSE). Since that OS will be 64-bit, I anticipate a heckuva learning curve for me - but I expect big advances from that.

[glockjs]

xp is 32 bit anyways. the next OS to take advantage of 64 bit really is vista. xp pro 64 is garbage. its just a filler anyways. you wont see any dif from xp to 2k.

[JohnnyMalaria]

xp is 32 bit anyways. the next OS to take advantage of 64 bit really is vista. xp pro 64 is garbage. its just a filler anyways. you wont see any dif from xp to 2k.

What? Take this advice with a huge grain of NaCl.

I put XP Pro 64 on my system and even my 32-bit apps benefit. I was impressed. No driver issues, either.

It lacks some of the functionality of XP Pro SP2 but the very same functionality is lacking in 32-bit Vista RTM, too.

[painkiller]

That's very interesting to hear, JohnnyMalaria.

I've been wondering about the XP-64 OS myself. Anyway you can elaborate on that just a bit more?