How to set up new computer I7 presonus firestudio project

[Iquit214]

I received my i7 computer with 6 gig of ram and vista 64 ultimate. I thought presonus would have 64 bit drivers worked out by now for the firestudio project, but it turns out they don't and this has become the weakest link in my set up. They "hope" to have drivers in 4-6 weeks, but I also read the same moderator stating the end of 2009. Aparently these have been in question for about 2 years.

My two questions are:

1. It seems a lot of people are posting that vista 64 bit is so much faster than the vista 32 bit. I really do not see how this is since almost everything they are working with is not written to take advantage of the extra ram. In addition not many programs are written for 64 bit. Maybe someone on here with some knowledge in recording and not gaming can give me some helpful information on this.

2. I know my system is set up to use tri channel memory. I currently have six 1 gig sticks of ram in my computer. I understand how vista 32 uses memory and 4 gigs is all that is allocated.

I am under the impression that pulling 3 gigs of memory out of the computer and leaving 3 gigs of tri channel memory would make it run the best. If I leave all 6 gigs in the computer, I am under the impression it would cause the 4 gig to run as dual channel memory.

I have been told dual is much slower than tri. If my above statements are correct what would be more benificial. 3 running as tri or 4 running as dual?

I have really been looking around on the internet for answers for this, but everything points to just installing vista 64. If I had another 1000.00 I might buy the fireface or some other interface with 64 bit drivers, but then again, I don't know what other suprises might lay ahead. I am certain all my recording gear and programs work under vista 32. Until presonus gets the drivers out, I'm just looking how to set up my desktop to run its best.

Thanks for your help. I hope my post was not to confusing.

[fmw]

You have some good information and some bad.

1. Vista 64 is a little faster than Vista 32 but not enough faster to really matter for your application.

2. Yes DDR3 memory is what the I7 uses. That's what you have by definition. Memory speed is probably the very least important performance parameter in a modern computer. Yes DDR3 is faster but it would be fair to say that it is measurably faster but not noticeably faster in an audio application.

You have no choice, by the way. You can only use DDR3 in your system. Removing DIMMS from your system won't make any difference at all in overall performance. If you use a 32 bit O/S then it will only address 4 GB of the memory and the rest of it simply won't be used. If you took out 3 DIMMS you would simply have less memory than the O/S can address. Might as well leave the memory there. No, whoever told you that running a 32 bit O/S would magically change DDR3 to DDR2 is simply mistaken. The operating system has no clue what kind of memory you have. It only knows where to go to write to it and read from it. The only difference in changing to a 32 bit O/S would be the amount of addressable memory.

Your computer is state of the art in terms of speed and performance, It will handle anything you throw at it. Don't spend another second worrying about it.

[tatteredstudios]

I echo the " RODE MIC" here, it looks as were all pretty much stuck with 32 bit for a while !!