In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

There is indeed, which is the point that I have made several times in this thread. Were it only the ability to use more than 3GB of RAM that would be enough to swing the choice for me, but it is far, far more than that.

Well we had this conversation back in august (or around win 7 rc) .. So it is slightly annoying to have had repeat everything. Remember somebody bringing out a link stating that 64bit programs take up 2x memory ..

Considering the next move will be 128bit and we are likely to see the bulldozer core (k11) chips having this ability .. saying to people not move to a 64bit os after 5 years of chips being available is ermm insane!


I doubt we will see anything beyond 128bit for a while (probably 2020) ...

[edit] also add in the increasing use of the gpu for more than graphics having anything beyond 128bit would be a waste. and one could argue that for 128bit.

Edited by Taras (Tue 27-Oct-09 16:00:36)

I think we're both arguing from the same side here. I've been pointing out the fallacy of that memory argument. In fact I'm confident that a well-written and compiled program will use less memory because it has all those extra registers to store variables in.

Anyway, it's all been said and done. Look at my web site if you doubt my commitment to 64-bit OSs!

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

Hi

64bit is the latest marketing to get people to upgrade to new hardware and computers, not everyone needs it.

Pro:
The one and probably only benefit with 64bit is it can access greater than 4 Gig of memory.

Con:
64bit programs and OS use more memory, this means in order to benefit from 64bit support for memory at 4GByte or above you need more than 4GByte, say 6 or 8GByte. If you only have 4GByte of memory you are probably better off sticking with 32bit and and 4GByte of RAM, even though that only gives you around 3GByte of usable memory, this is because going to 64Bit may give you the full 4GByte of memory, but you lose the benefit of that extra 1Gig because programs use more memory running 64bit, including the OS. Factor in 32bit programs having to run in WoW and potential driver and compatibility issues with some applications, it just isn't worth it as you don't really benefit.

Regards

Phil

Oh btw you completely forgot about any graphics card .. Given that most are now 512mb in size and high end ones hit 2gb your nice little con goes out of the window.

Oh and programs,may use floats which may be 64 or 128bit(double or quad precision - aep can write this better as i've not been in direct programming for a few years now) in length, move that on to the a 64bit processor you get a nice speed boost .