Windows Vista Performance

With the release of Windows Vista we finally have an operating system that can be used in either 32-bit or 64-bit. Windows Vista is the real first hard attempt at pushing people towards a proper 64-bit Operating System, yes we have already have Windows XP X64 Edition, but this hasn't been supported enough by hardware companies to make it into the mainstream and Vista already has a much wider range of 64-bit drivers even this short time after it launched.

We decided to give Windows Vista a go on our review machine in both 32 and 64-bit The installation of both went smoothly, with only a few drivers not supported at first boot, there were nearly all on the 64-bit version but all the hardware we had was easily updated to new working drivers when we went online and downloaded them. Windows Vista ran perfectly well on the previous review system we had which was the 5000+, but with the 6000 processor everything was just that bit faster, from booting up to general usage.

One major enhancement in Windows Vista 64-bit edition is that they provide much improved security features over the plain 32-bit versions. thanks to the No Execute (NX) technology and Data Execution Protection (DEP) which help to try and prevent buffer overflows that are the most common used attacks around today.

Compatibility is the hardest part to review here, we have run into problems with the 64-bit version as expected with poorer drivers and various programs not running, this wouldn't matter too much to us if the 64-bit version was faster than the 32-bit one, but this isn't the case - in some respects it is actually slower which is a real shame as we wanted to love our new 64-bit world. Overall though the 6000+ processor is excellent for Windows Vista, especially if you have a decent amount of RAM, you can really get a high speed machine set up for a low price.