Install Windows 7 64 bit as only OS on Mac Pro

Question

Ok, I'm hugely disappointed with Snow Leopard development. First you still get stuck with 32 bit kernel since there are no official 64 bit drivers for my printers, scanners, cameras. Second Photoshop CS 3 does not work with it, and no version of Nikon Capture NX works either (apart from it being 32 bit anyway). So my option is to stay with Leopard (with chess as only 64 bit app), or alternatively to go Windows 7 64 bit on my Mac Pro and try to take full advantage of all the hardware I spent thousands of dollars on (since there is 64 bit Photoshop and Capture NX works as well, and there are 64 bit drivers for my peripherals), and the OS can actually use all 32 GB.
So, my question is has anyone successfully installed Windows 7 64 bit as the only OS? Did you have any issues? In particular, are there any issues with DVD ejection, and screen brightness control? Are there official Apple drivers for these devices for Windows 7 64 bit?

Answer 1

You don't get 64-bit software until there is demand, and a need, and the hardware to further that development.
Game developers are finding they can work and compile much more efficiently.
Snow Leopard is a launching point, not a destination. Efficient use of more than 2-4 cores is going to take time.
And Intel is there helping companies and bring out refinements in compilers. Then add 1-2 yrs to actually deploy, plus the time to master those tools, and not everyone will or can.
Adobe built their code on Carbon code foundation - a big mistake - and reached the end of where that takes them. Their CS4 Windows is 64-bit, CS5 for Mac OS will or might be but ground up rework into Cocoa code, however OS X does a lot to help use memory, but if you aren't working with 1-2-3GB files you may not.
Nehalem has a lot more bandwidth, on the fly up clock of cpu. Nvidia GTX 200s also respond dymanic and dramatically to small demands to ram up GPU performance. Even launching a program kicks everything into high gear and you can see that charted with various tools (more easily in W7 than in OS X). And to recover to lower energy and heat as quickly. Going green to cut the costs of running servers and systems.
The Mac Pro 2008 was the first with a full 64-bit Unified EFI (UEFI 2.x). Apple, Intel, Microsoft and other members of EFI Group only officially supported EFI on 64-bit post Vista SP1, which was less than 18 months ago, around the time the 2008 Mac Pro came out. That's pretty good.
Yes, Mac OS uses a PA/E memory addressing.
Microsoft used millions of beta users to help identify bottlenecks in drivers during W7 development. And 100s millions of Vista users along with help of Intel engineers in hardware and software. No reason that won't happen with Snow Leopard eventually.
CUDA and GPGPU / Physix are not new, OpenCL is a new standard and name that may be more open to more types of uses and applications - over time.
OS 9 had trouble with Finder. Funny enough, so has OS X, and now it is suppose to have gotten its own multi-thread makeover - it needed it badly and was/is the source of a lot of problems, lost threads or processes and getting lost. We'll have to see.
I think there is a huge market today for a system built around the Core i7 with 2-4-6 cores and 6-12GB of memory with GTS 250 or above (not the entry level offered last year or the GT120 today).
A lot of people don't want to leave XP which is 32-bit and how old is that? I think they'll like W7, if they invest in new hardware.
Your time frame is not how systems evolve.
What would you do you can't do now? very little is my bet. And when the Mac Pro came out 3 yrs ago, a lot of drivers broke and had to be re-engineered and vendors prefer evolution over revolution. The 2008 Mac Pro early on had a number of hardware issues dealing with power management. Happens every step of the way.
Your Mac will probably still serve your needs, whether in 10.6.9 or 10.7 or Win7 and beyond.