Worth Upgrading to Vista From XP?

[Rellikard]

So... I have a Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit OEM disc laying around with plans to use it on no other computer that I have. I'm wondering, should I put it on my current system? Well I guess I'm more wondering if my system would be able to take the OS...

I've worked @ Geek Squad for the past 2 and a half years and though my PCs are only XP, I'm more used to Vista now, so I'd like to use it but don't think my system will support it well. Any thoughts?

System Specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz)
RAM: 2x 1GB (DDR2 PC2 5300)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT
OS: Windows XP Home (Occasionally getting Explorer.exe error...)

[Cephius]

Shouldn't have any problem running Vista on that. You can always disable the visual enhancements if you do.

Though with Win7 a few months away, you may just want to wait on that. Or just pick up the beta.

[Rockstaru]

If you wanted to, you could add another two sticks of RAM (if the mobo supports 4GB), get a copy of 64-bit Ultimate and use your key with that. Just an option you might want to consider, since RAM is pretty dirt cheap these days (2GB of PC5300 is a little over 30$ with shipping on newegg). But given that Windows 7 is coming out soon, I'd just hold off until October--saves you the hassle of reformatting twice (assuming you want to go the 7 route).

[Rellikard]

If you wanted to, you could add another two sticks of RAM (if the mobo supports 4GB), get a copy of 64-bit Ultimate and use your key with that. Just an option you might want to consider, since RAM is pretty dirt cheap these days (2GB of PC5300 is a little over 30$ with shipping on newegg). But given that Windows 7 is coming out soon, I'd just hold off until October--saves you the hassle of reformatting twice (assuming you want to go the 7 route).

I have an old cheapo motherboard since this was the 1st PC I built and it was sort of a budget PC so max RAM supported is 2GB.

Not sure if you know about this, but I got the Intel Retail Edge Big Deal package, so it came with 2 copies of Vista Ultimate OEM 32-bit and 64-bit, each disc with its own product key. So once I finish building my new machine, I feel as if that 32-bit's going to go to waste but it's probably better if I just make a partition on this machine for Win7-32 and use my upgrade to go off of my XP partition.

Anyway, I just ordered my FFXI Collection 2008 from Amazon (since my 2007 doesn't work for Vista/7...) and I guess once I get that, I'll just put 7 on this and use that until the retail version comes out.