[CommanderDJ]

Hello all,
The time has come. I've finally decided to switch from my trusty Windows XP to Windows 7. Now, I'm not sure whether to get Windows 7 in 32bit or 64bit. So, I want to know the advantages of 64bit vs 32bit operating systems, and I wanted to hear it from people I'm vaguely familiar with, rather than some random site on the interwebs. So perhaps if someone has experience with both they can compare the two? Up to you guys, I'll take whatever info I can get. I don't know if my system specs will make any difference, so here they are:
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 Processor
Gigabyte EX38-DS4 Mobo
4GB DDR2 RAM
GeForce 9600GT Graphics Card

Thanks in advance.

[headdie]

If you have to upgrade from xp as you have a 64 bit processor and plenty of power in theory 64bit version should bettwe utalise your processor

[Fury]

No reason to get 32-bit Windows if CPU supports 64-bit.

End of topic.

[Bearstrike]

Question:  What can 64 bit do that 32 cant?  All I see/hear is people with issues with 64 bit from everything from drivers to games.

Ps:  I'm quite happy sticking with lovely XP for a good while longer.

[Topgun]

Eventually programs, especially games, will no longer be available in 32bit.

I run 64bit windows 7 and 64bit arch linux no problem.

[Shivan Hunter]

If you have more than 4GB RAM you'll want 64bit. 32bit can only use 4GB (in practice, usually less).

[Fury]

Question:  What can 64 bit do that 32 cant?  All I see/hear is people with issues with 64 bit from everything from drivers to games.

64-bit OS can use more than 4GB of RAM and applications can use more than 2GB RAM. There are very little problems with 64-bit OS today. Problems are often associated with outdated hardware and old software. Neither of which should be an issue since you're going to use 64-bit OS on modern, up-to-date hardware. For second problem there's always emulators and virtual machines, or just keep old rig around for old games. For obscure outdated software there are always alternatives.

[MP-Ryan]

I could have sworn we just had this discussion a month ago.  Maybe that was one of my other forums.

Anyway, Windows 7 should not be purchased in anything other than 64-bit.  As of roughly 2 years ago (minimum), there was no longer any reason whatsoever to buy a 32-bit operating system if your processor supported 64-bit.  Even Vista 32-bit was pointless if your processor supported 64.

The only problems with 64-bit, as Fury has said, can be backwards compatibility.  That said, I use a lot of open-source software and play older games, and I have not had a single problem with them.  The driver compatibility in 64-bit is as good or better than what's available in 32, and the signed drivers issue is a complete non-starter.

I have very similar system specs to what you've listed (possibly slightly older) and have been using Windows 7 64-bit Professional since it was released without a single issue.

[Liberator]

I have recently made the same upgrade you are considering.

I can tell you right now, all the programs I use on a daily basis didn't care one whit that I had upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit.  A couple of them didn't even have to be reinstalled(WoW & Starcraft).  Even programs that were new to me, but years old, like Half-Life 2 and it's sequels ran like a top.

[Nuke]

ive been using 64 bit for years. i had 8 gigs of ram when most people only had 2. i started with 64 bit versions of xp, moved up to 64 bit vista. now thinking of using 64 bit 7. 32 bit windows is really only around for netbooks and embedded systems, and has no place on a modern desktop or laptop. i hope the next version of windows dispenses with 32 bit entirely.

it has some drawbacks, you can only use 64 bit drivers, so old hardware wont work well. you also wont be able to run old 8 and 16 bit applications no more without an emulator. but very rarely do i ever need to do that. and when i do i have a couple 32 bit junk machines lying around.

[S-99]

Just to get rid of this confusion before it arises. There are those convinced that you can't run 64 bit if you have less than 4gb of memory. Of course this is false.

I run 64 bit on my computer with 2gb of memory (i'll get more later if i reach my memory consumption ceilling). I do it for the sake that more and more software is going to be, already is, or will be very soon 64 bit. The other benefit to running 64 bit is because encoding stuff like video and audio is faster on a 64 bit platform than 32 bit. There are also some other performance enhancements with 64 bit compared to 32 bit. In practice, many programs with a 64 bit equivalent of the 32 bit version don't run any faster.

[Bearstrike]

Ok, so I take it 32 bit has been around for a while, and the fact that it has a version released on newer OS's is just a sort of useless tradition now?  Is there any benefit to 32 bit at all?

[Klaustrophobia]

not really, no.

[The E]

No, not on modern Desktop/Laptop machines.

Calling it a "useless tradition" is wrong though. It still has a place in some areas (basically, anywhere where processing power is not critical, think netbooks, iPad-like devices, smartphones and embedded devices).

[Nuke]

we have actually done this a few times before. 8 bit to 16 bit, then to 32 bit. 32 bit was fine and dandy up till we hit the memory wall. only way past that wall is to upgrade to 64 bit. its been supported on many cpus for years. its just taken this long for software to catch up to it.

[Mikes]

Question:  What can 64 bit do that 32 cant?  All I see/hear is people with issues with 64 bit from everything from drivers to games.

A 64 bit OS can access more than 4GB of total adress space, a 32bit OS can not.

So it really is quite simply... if you want to have more than 4GB total adress space (which includes system RAM, graphic card RAM any adress space taken up by other devices etc.) ... you kinda need 64bit. No way around it.
And if we are talking about a new computer / mostly new hardware... please, don't even consider 32bit anymore. 32bit is over.

As far as "issues" go... it's actually the other way around by now and has been for a while, as we've seen several games that would crash in 32bit at some point due to hitting the 2GB RAM barrier for a single applications.
(This includes even games that are several years old by now like Supreme Commander....  can't play large Multiplayer maps without crashes in 32bit...  well you can... if you tweak the 2gb limit and if you don't have a graphic card with too much memmory to make that hack feasible without compromising Kernel stability...yah).

In any case.... with graphic cards that have 1-2gb memmory by themselves nowadays (which also counts towards the 4gb max limitation of a 32bit OS) it's safe to say that getting anything but 64bit on a computer with recent/semirecent hardware is pretty... unwise.


With the OPs computer setup both 32bit and 64bit will work just fine. (His hardware isn't even close to being old enough for 64bit driver support to still be an issue.)
However, since the Geforce 9600GT likely has 512MB ram....  he won't be able to use his full 4GB system ram with 32bit. (4608mb vs. 4gb address space limit).

I.e. No reason not to get 64bit nowadays..... but only drawbacks/headaches with 32bit.

Ps:  I'm quite happy sticking with lovely XP for a good while longer.

Only until you buy a new computer.... trust me

[Herra Tohtori]

Regarding the memory limitation thing:

32-bit system allows 4096 MB of address space for memory.

Computer's hardware takes certain amount of address space to run, and that's booked first for the system to run in the first place. This includes motherboard's devices, network interface cards, video card, sound card and whatever stuff you have connected to the computer on hardware level. The biggest chunk would usually be the graphics card which these days have 512-1024 MB of memory by themselves.

So now you have a situation where up to 512-1024 MB out of 4096 available megabytes of address space are taken by the system itself, leaving 3-3.5 GB's of address space for the actual random access memory itself. This means that if you have 4 gigs of physical RAM, only about 3-3.5 GB of it will be mapped and available for the system to use. The rest is left unaddressed and un-used.

64-bit system theoretically offers address space of 16 exabytes (over 16 million gigabytes), so practically any amount of hardware and physical memory can fit there without any problems whatsoever, even though typically hardware manufacturers limit the address space to something more practical like 256 TB which, of course, is still plenty sufficient as far as amount of memory goes.

Of course, with the law of accelerating returns and Moore's law, we'll probably be hitting the memory wall again in about ten to fifteen years or so and have to change to 128-bit computing...

[The E]

Except, probably not. Moore's law is coming to a point where it isn't sustainable anymore, as we are running up against our capability to make smaller and smaller structures economically (The smaller you go, the higher the need for precision and the smaller the margin for errors; This of course means that a chip manufacturer can't get as many chips from the raw material as a higher percentage will have crippling defects).

And while there is truth to the statement that data will expand to fill the space available, I have to ask myself just what kind of content or applications people will use that would require several Internets worth of information.....

[Mikes]

Except, probably not. Moore's law is coming to a point where it isn't sustainable anymore, as we are running up against our capability to make smaller and smaller structures economically (The smaller you go, the higher the need for precision and the smaller the margin for errors; This of course means that a chip manufacturer can't get as many chips from the raw material as a higher percentage will have crippling defects).

And while there is truth to the statement that data will expand to fill the space available, I have to ask myself just what kind of content or applications people will use that would require several Internets worth of information.....

Maybe it won't be "people" using it? heh

But yeah... we won't get there on silicone.

[redsniper]

silicone