Windows XP 64-bit Edition?

Hell no. I've already spent the past few years learning all the ways in which XP x64 Edition has more in common with Vista than with 32-bit XP, and regretting my purchase of XP x64. I'm now preparing to wipe my desktop's hard drive and move from XP x64 back to 32-bit XP (replacing Mint with Puppy and hopefully Win8.1 with Win7 while I'm at it). I am in no mood to drop thousands of dollars on yet another version of XP that is less useful than what I already have.

 

Those Itanium processors are perhaps the TOP of the top of the line...they're expensive to produce, and not easy to obtain if you have a 'typical' budget, but if you can get your hands on one they have true heavyweight power (their best use is for servers, but they'll give you solid performance in other capacities too). Well ahead of their time, sadly. If Intel had waited a few years they could have made a bigger impact than they did.