Seeking advice - AMD 64 and Win 64-bit?

Over the weekend my SL-running computer decided that it had had enough and finally bit the big one...one fell power dip and poof, instant room heater that looks an awful lot like a computer/computer case. Anyway, I did the only thing I could do - ran out and bought a new one before I suffered SL-wtihdrawal symptoms. Luckily, I only needed to replace the mb, cpu and ram.. all my video cards and peripjherals still work fine and are relatively fast.

Not one to pass up the latest and greatest when I can afford it, I managed buy an AMD64 cpu/mb combo and took it home.

So, after fighting to reinstall Win XP and finally getting it bak to a workable state and dutifully ran the Win update process....installed all drivers, and so on.... While looking around on the MS site, it seems that MS has a Win 64 Beta OS that I could download for free and run for a year at no cost. From what it says, there is a 32-bit emulation mode that will run al of my current software....

Here's the point of this post/thread.

Any comments on the reasonableness of going the Win 64 bit Beta OS route rather than staying with Win XP for the forseeable/near future? I am sure that sokme of you are much more up to date on the latest and greatest than I am... so your thoughts are appreciated... and I am willing to entertain any advice on the subject.

Probalby ought to consider the following as you respond... I am not a sys admin. I am not runnig a network except in my home. This will not be a commerical installation. Win XP has done everything I have askedit to, up to this point, with no problems (other than difficult installations occasionally [on others' computers]).

Might as well stay with the current windows system unless you have 64bit optimised programs.

Other than that though, the 64bit amd does have better cache and other whistles that makes it worth it regardless of your OS.

That's my semi-educated opinion.

I can tell you that there are not a lot of hardware drivers for the 64 Bit Windows yet. I have it as a dual boot and there are no wireless drivers at all. Second Life does run with the new ATI beta 64 bit driver and a wired connection. If you can get by with the drivers available so far it's great. You can check this site out for available drivers http://www.planetamd64.com/.

I appreciate the input so far.

Wireless is not an issue for me and I can live with my current drivers until more/different ones begin to come out.

I bought this chip for the speed it shows running in 32 bit emulation mode.. the question about going to Win XP 64 Beta is mainly rooted in the question of whether you guys and gals think it is worth the gamble.....

This machine is my only one that can play SL... though I have others to handle the mundane tasks of surfing and MS Office application stuff if the desktop/Beta turns out to be too unstable...

Unless you're running 64-bit applications that can take advantage of the new architecture, I'd be hesitant. Win-bloze is buggy enough with their current OS's. I'd hate to have to wrestle with a beta out of Redmond.

- Ace

Unless the drivers are 64 bit you won't be able to use your current drivers in Windows XP 64 Bit so it might be better to stay with the 32 bit version for now. SL didn't work with the first ATI 64 bit beta driver but it works with the new one. Don't know about the nVidia 64 bit beta driver since I don't have an nVidia card.

Just stick with what you have.

You might want to check out these two links:

AMD64 Device Drivers

AMD64 Ecosystem: Software Solutions

Different opinions.. different perspectives.. just what I was looking for. Thanks all.

Paolo, a particular thanks to you for that link.. I can definitely make a more informed decision with that info now.

Any one else care to comment?