64bit computing

[otispunkmeyer]

i need some help guys, help understanding what 64bit computing is about and what it will do for me

im currently growing out of PC gaming now, and i jus want a machine that will let me work, watch movies, do internet etc. im thinking of buying a laptop since im always between home and uni.

so ive been looking round, tyring to find machines that will run XP Pro now, then run Vista premium when it arrives. then i realised that hardly any have 64bit processors (core duo)

now i see there are two versions of the vista beta2 32 and 64bit..... what are the differences?

is there things that can be done on one that cant be done on the other?
is the 64 version faster? more efficient?
will 32bit computing be around for a while to come or is 64bit gonna take over?

all i know now is 64bit lets you use more ram....thats it. :|

 

[thereaderrabbit]

There is no practical advantage to having a 64-bit OS on a standard home PC in today's world. There are no killer apps that require a 64-bit OS or the increased system memory associated with one. Perhaps things will change by the time the next MS OS hits the shelves or Apple releases a gereric CPU version of their OS, but until then you'll be fine without it.

 

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally posted by: thereaderrabbit
There is no practical advantage to having a 64-bit OS on a standard home PC in today's world. There are no killer apps that require a 64-bit OS or the increased system memory associated with one. Perhaps things will change by the time the next MS OS hits the shelves or Apple releases a gereric CPU version of their OS, but until then you'll be fine without it.

Thats all true ... but lets take another step beyond that. Its more important to understand what 64 bit computing will do, and why it will be "mainstream" in the future. 64 bit computing means that your processor is able to process data in "64 pieces per chunk" as opposed to the current "32 piece limit" by a 32 bit processor. This means that it will take twice the ram to process a chunk, but can also process twice the data per clock cycle.

Whats this mean today? Like the previous poster stated, virtually nothing. However, its only a matter of time before 64 bit will be considered "main stream." If I were you, I'd buy the fastest cpu in your budget range regardless of whether its 32 or 64 bit. 32 bit is still going to be "mainstream" for a while.

P.S. Core duo is still a 32 bit processor. Granted, you have 2 32 bit cores working for you .... but you're still only processing data in 32 bit chunks. I'm seeing more and more people jumping to the faulty assumption that 2 32 bit cores = 64 bit. Thats not the case, friend.

 

[Nothinman]

is there things that can be done on one that cant be done on the other?

Yes, with XP32 you'll be able to use all of your current hardware and software without any issues. With XP64 you'll need 64-bit drivers and 32-bit shared libraries for any 32-bit apps that you need to run. And since most Windows software is closed source you're stuck running the 32-bit binaries until the owning company decides to release a 64-bit version.

is the 64 version faster? more efficient?

The 64-bit version of XP is based on Win2K3 so it should be a little bit faster, but it's probably 99% the same code as XP32.

will 32bit computing be around for a while to come or is 64bit gonna take over?

64-bit computing has been around for over a decade and it still hasn't taken over. The people who really need it (large databases, 3D render farms, etc) have been using it on SGI, DEC, Sun, etc hardware for years now.

There are no killer apps that require a 64-bit OS or the increased system memory associated with one.

There are a few apps for things like image processing and 3D rendering that will benefit from the additional VM, but they're pretty niche.

64 bit computing means that your processor is able to process data in "64 pieces per chunk" as opposed to the current "32 piece limit" by a 32 bit processor. This means that it will take twice the ram to process a chunk, but can also process twice the data per clock cycle.

Yes, the GPRs are 64-bit, but IIRC int and long are both still described as 32-bit so most apps won't notice any difference. And Intel CPUs have been able to handle 64-bit numbers since MMX was introduced.

The only real advantage to running a 64-bit system is use of the additional GPRs. There's twice as many GRPs available on an AMD64/EM64T CPU in long mode as there on a regular x86 CPU or an AMD64/EM64T chip in legacy mode and that will give all 64-bit apps a minor performance boost. But that's not even a result of the CPU being 64-bit, that's just an additional thing AMD was able to add since they weren't keeping compatibility with x86 when running in long mode.

If you have an app that needs more than 3G of VM (2G on Windows) then you'll need a 64-bit system, but those are really rare and if you're running one of them you're most likely already running a 64-bit system or a 32-bit one in PAE mode with the app using AWE to work around the VM limits.

 

[silverpig]

About the only real difference you might notice is in encoding. You get a huge boost on .wav -> .mp3...