Well I decided to install Windows XP 32-bit because:
1. SP3 isn't available for x64 Windows XP
2. Civilization 4 doesn't run well on x64. (at least it wasn't for me).
3. Its harder to find drivers for x64.
Yup, SP2 is the latest for XP x64. I can't say much about Civ4 - I lost one of my install CD's, so I haven't played it for half a year. As for drivers, you're right, it's more difficult. Although if you're decently mainstream you can usually find what you need at least for core hardware (not so sure about peripherals).
really? thats a great deal! but what kind of student email, can it be high school, or is it exclusively college?
Generally the restriction is to students with .edu email addresses. So that tends to mean exclusively college/university.
I've been using XP x64 as my primary OS for a bit more than a month (with XP x86 Home as the dual-boot). What I've found:
Pros: Can use more memory, can run 64-bit programs.
Cons: Can't use Hibernate with more than 4 GB of RAM, some drivers aren't as good, some games cause Blue Screens of Death (looking at Call of Duty 4, at least with nVIDIA graphics) fairly often.
If you don't use the memory, it's kind of moot point. The 64-bit program benefit doesn't count for much, as the few programs that are available often aren't the sort that actually need the performance boost (say, Firefox 3.0.10 64-bit - the 32-bit version performs perfectly fine). And as a mobile user, I limit XP x64 to 4 GB anyway so I can use Hibernate.
So if I were to do it over, I'd probably go with XP x86. Better drivers (network + video in my case), better stability (gotta love nVIDIA drivers causing BSODs), and no real loss. But XP x64 is reasonably close to as good as XP x86, such that it's not worth the effort to switch back, and it's still much better than Vista/7 x86 or x64 for me thanks to better compatibility.
Btw, any "Black Edition" of Windows is pirated and illegitimate. AMD Phenom II's may well be Black Edition, but if you're talking about Windows, steer clear of those.
As for the XP x64 trial, it is still available, but hard to access. That's how I first tried XP x64, and liked it well enough (not then noticing the problems I since have) to join ACM/MSDNAA and go with the full version. If someone wants to try it, I can dig it up.