XP or Vista

Witch have you had better performance out of?
Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS3 on Windows Xp 32, XP 64 or Vista 32 or 64?

I'm running Lightroom 2 64-bit on Vista Home Premium 64-bit and it runs great for me. I set my cache size to 3.0gb and so far it's handling everything like a champ (2.4ghz quad core, 8gb of ram).

All things being equal, Vista 64bit is a better performer but not by much in most cases - though Vista takes longer to start programs it picks up speed considerably once things are in memory.

I'm running pretty much the same setup as smclelland, and couldn't be more pleased.

I am running.

ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz Dual-Core Processor
OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Memory
MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 Video Card
1-Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
2-Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

I would like to add a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive or a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive.
2 more GB of the same memory that I have now and upgrade to windows xp64 or vista 64.

cbrown wrote in post #6711082
I am running.

ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz Dual-Core Processor
OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Memory
MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 Video Card
1-Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
2-Western Digital Caviar Blue WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

I would like to add a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive or a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive.
2 more GB of the same memory that I have now and upgrade to windows xp64 or vista 64.

At today's prices, you may as well go with 8 gb of RAM. As for going 64 bit, Vista64 will be far better supported than XP64.

The RAM is definitely going to be your biggest helper in the upgrade path and going 64-bit I would suggest 4GB+. I picked my Mushkin DDR2-800 up for $79 per 4gb kit on sale and it'
s great, my CPU is overclocked to 3.2ghz to give me a 1:1 sync in memory speed and clock speed (400x8 multiplier, DDR2-800 clock is 400^2 so it comes out nice and synchronous).

If you go Vista 64-bit, stick to Home Premium so you don't get all the unnecessary garbage that comes with Business/Ultimate imho. I run XP 64-bit at the office here and while I like it I still prefer my Vista 64-bit workstation.

I also noticed a pretty nice change going from my old Radeon 2900XT to an EVGA GeForce GTX260 Core216 in CS4/Lightroom.