I need an advice ASAP

[mohamedelzayat]

Hi every one..

First my computer specifications:

Motherboard: EPoX nForce 4

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.1GHz

RAM: 1GB

Graphic Card: ATI Radeon X550 PCIE 128MB

HDD: MAXTOR 80GB SATA + WESTERN 80GB IDE

I heared that Windows Server 2003 is running faster than Windows XP and more efficient...so..

is Windows Server 2003 will perform better than Windows XP when I use it at home

Actually at home I use Visual Studio .NET 2005, Photoshop, Maya,and also run Heavy graphical games... and also render heavy graphic scenes..and have little home network.. if it will be good for me to run Windows Server 2003.. which edition I should use???

REALLY THE ADVICE WILL BE APPRECIATED...

EDIT: I read the post "Windows 2003 - convert from server to desktop" but also I need ur advice since I'm hesitating little bit and I don't have much time to play with installations of different OS..

Thanx in advance..

Mohamed.

Edited October 17, 2006 by mohamedelzayat

[CoffeeFiend]

No, Win2003 is no faster than XP really. The only opinions I've heard saying that it was were a couple forum posts, and they are just that: opinions of pretty much anybody (based on nothing factual or with nothing to back it up). I've never seen any hard facts, benchmarks, expert opinions or such proving so (and I doubt we ever will). The main thing is configuration here. Win2003 can be FAR heavier depending on what components you run/use. Personally, I use both everyday, and I'd say speed is pretty much equivalent. XP's great for the usual desktop systems, but sometimes 2003 is required (like if you need IIS6, Terminal Server, WM Svcs and other server components, or use apps that will only install on a "server" version of windows like SQL Server [non-dev/express ed], etc)

I use VS2005 and Photoshop a LOT (that's perhaps the 2 apps I use the most), and they run perfectly on XP. Or should I say, they're equally fast/slow when running on both platforms. Both are rather heavy and memory intensive apps, and either OS won't change that. Best thing you can do right now is spend some $ on more RAM. VS2005 and Photosop can surely use a LOT more than 1GB (even more if you're running SQL Server Express 2005 along with VS2005 or such in the background)! I had that much RAM in the VS.NET days... and VS2005 is much heavier. Having more RAM will reduce swapping a great deal (using Virtual Memory) which DOES slow any PC down tremendously (HD is slower than RAM by several orders of magnitude - a few nanosec latency vs a few milisec latency for the HD; transfer speeds are also much slower for HDs), MUCH more than switching between those 2 OS'es will ever give you. I'd at least double the RAM (VS2005 is one heavy IDE, and Photoshop is quite heavy too - especially if you use layers a lot, deal with RAW images, do HDR or pano images and such; if you're a firefox user like I am, that can use a lot too)

Basically, changing the OS is rather pointless, your performance problem is your apps are memory starved... Just buy some RAM.

Edited October 17, 2006 by crahak

[valter]

No, Win2003 is no faster than XP really. The only opinions I've heard saying that it was were a couple forum posts, and they are just that: opinions of pretty much anybody (based on nothing factual or with nothing to back it up). I've never seen any hard facts, benchmarks, expert opinions or such proving so (and I doubt we ever will). The main thing is configuration here. Win2003 can be FAR heavier depending on what components you run/use. Personally, I use both everyday, and I'd say speed is pretty much equivalent. XP's great for the usual desktop systems, but sometimes 2003 is required (like if you need IIS6, Terminal Server, WM Svcs and other server components, or use apps that will only install on a "server" version of windows like SQL Server [non-dev/express ed], etc) ... Basically, changing the OS is rather pointless, your performance problem is your apps are memory starved... Just buy some RAM.

totally agree, Mohamed I see no reason why would anyone run any Windows Server as their workstation OS. beside aforementioned, I would say that server OS requires even more resources than ordinary Windows XP, so there is really no point running server OS.

[mohamedelzayat]

Thanks to u guys.... u really helped me...

and I really appreciate it...

thanx Allot....