In reply to a post by Oldjim:

Remember - if you later add more memory and want to go to 64 bit from 32 bit is is a full clean install so you will lose everything and have to reinstall all your other programs etc.
The other thing, which I am sure has been mentioned, is that total memory includes the memory on the graphics card so a modern card with 1GB ram will reduce the effective available memory in windows 32 bit down to about 2.5GB

and if you have a 5970 .. ..

This x64 Vs x32bit convo is crazy...

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

Hi

You need 6Gig or more memory to make 64 bit Windows really worth while (why 3 channel DDR was invented as it allowed 3x2GByte sticks of memory without breaking the bank), and even then unless you have a real need for that much memory it will be sat doing very little.

HAHAHAHAHAH OMG..

The reason intel put trippe channel into their high end i9x series and Xenon chips is to feed the qpi paths not your crazy asumption intel did it feed your crazy assumption 6gb is the sweet spot for x64 oses ..

For those spouting 64bit is faster, go to Intel's website and find Intel telling it's customers that? If there was any real performance difference don't we think Intel would be shouting about it to push sales of new CPUs and hardware?...... The only performance difference comes from the ability to address more memory, and where you have a specific need for that memory, most people don't at this point in time.

Regards

Phil

Intel has had a weaker x64 implementation (don't know if this s resolved in the latest gen of chips from intel)>

Ahh Phill you make me laugh .. too much.

In reply to a post by 12eason:

Less than 2Gb means the OS takes up near 50% of memory. Sure, the OS will run better, but when you start loading large programs they'll start touching the page-file too often.

I am running windows 7 with 2GB of ram and don't have any problems here and I use some large programs like Vegas, photoshop and quark.

Don't know if this helps either, however, I am running Win7 64bit RTM and Office 2010 64bit beta from MS Partner site and we have a particularly large database file that we update hourly, I have to say that, whilst it may be a placebo affect, it seems to run a lot lot quicker when entering data and just a simple "lookup" is much much faster........
Perhaps we are just imagining it

No, we are not sad enough to have timed it, suffice to say that both of us, my partner and I, have both said, isn't this faster and much better than it used to be!

In reply to a post by TrevorSP:

Don't know if this helps either, however, I am running Win7 64bit RTM and Office 2010 64bit beta from MS Partner site and we have a particularly large database file that we update hourly, I have to say that, whilst it may be a placebo affect, it seems to run a lot lot quicker when entering data and just a simple "lookup" is much much faster........
Perhaps we are just imagining it

No, we are not sad enough to have timed it, suffice to say that both of us, my partner and I, have both said, isn't this faster and much better than it used to be!

Databases Luv 64bitness ...

Anything that manipulates large amounts of data will love the bigger size. (I suspect that a lot more work has been done o databases than many other programs.)

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

Anything that manipulates large amounts of data will love the bigger size. (I suspect that a lot more work has been done o databases than many other programs.)

They are adding more and more support for SQL backends .. which will start to make acess less of a mickymouse operation

Surely you and everyone else requires a browser, not an operating system, to browse the web?

I'm probably being pedantic now, but mediaplayer is an app given away with the OS.

No not a fool just not very helpfool at answering this thread.
Other times you've been very usefool and helped others.

the OS itself is so much smoother, due to the improved 64bit memory and cache handling. Making the majority of apps I run faster.

The question should be what runs slower not what runs faster.

Even most 32bit apps are faster.