How important is 64-bit gonna be over the next 4 years?

[avi85]

How important is 64-bit gonna be over the next 4 years?
I want to buy a new laptop and Yonah is much cheaper than merom (at least in the model I want) the only real big difference between the 2 seems to be 64-bit support, I'm aware of the architectural differences but they still perform pretty about the same at equivalent clock speeds (it's not light and day...), I plan on keeping this laptop for about 4 years so if it's gonna be pretty important to have 64-bit, I need to know...
TIA

 

[JonnyBlaze]

next 4 years? not that important unless you NEED 64bit for software that needs more ram than 32bit can give it.


after that i hear the next MS os is 64bit only.

 

[avi85]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
next 4 years? not that important unless you NEED 64bit for software that needs more ram than 32bit can give it.


after that i hear the next MS os is 64bit only.

isn't the next OS scheduled for 2009(ish)? that's in 2 years... see here, under the "Backward compatibility" paragraph it says that it will almost certainly will ship only in a 64-bit edition...
now to make a decision... (I could use some help here...)

 

[HopJokey]

Originally posted by: avi85

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
next 4 years? not that important unless you NEED 64bit for software that needs more ram than 32bit can give it.


after that i hear the next MS os is 64bit only.

isn't the next OS scheduled for 2009(ish)? that's in 2 years... see here, under the "Backward compatibility" paragraph it says that it will almost certainly will ship only in a 64-bit edition...
now to make a decision... (I could use some help here...)

I'm pretty sure Yonah and Merom are pin compatible and you will be able to upgrade to a Merom pretty easily. All you would need to do is buy the Merom and swap it with the Yonah. Only thing is maybe the BIOS needs to support it.

Thus you can go with a Yonah now and upgrade later if need be.

 

[f4phantom2500]

Originally posted by: HopJokey

Originally posted by: avi85

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
next 4 years? not that important unless you NEED 64bit for software that needs more ram than 32bit can give it.


after that i hear the next MS os is 64bit only.

isn't the next OS scheduled for 2009(ish)? that's in 2 years... see here, under the "Backward compatibility" paragraph it says that it will almost certainly will ship only in a 64-bit edition...
now to make a decision... (I could use some help here...)

I'm pretty sure Yonah and Merom are pin compatible and you will be able to upgrade to a Merom pretty easily. All you would need to do is buy the Merom and swap it with the Yonah. Only thing is maybe the BIOS needs to support it.

Thus you can go with a Yonah now and upgrade later if need be.

Exactly. Just make sure you get a laptop that supports Merom as well and you should be fine to just upgrade later, because by the time you need 64-bit Merom chips will be super cheap.

 

[formulav8]

Maybe get a lappy that is upgradable to Core2?

Edit: Already mentioned it seams


Jason

 

[StopSign]

Problem is what are you going to do with your Yonah chip after swapping it out? The loss from selling it 2nd hand is greater than spending more right now for a Merom.

 

[avi85]

Originally posted by: StopSign
Problem is what are you going to do with your Yonah chip after swapping it out? The loss from selling it 2nd hand is greater than spending more right now for a Merom.

but I could probably find a used t7200/400/600 on ebay for $100 or so in a couple years, right now to go from a 2.0 GHZ Yonah to a 2.0 GHZ Merom (only differences between them are 533mhz bus vs. 667mhz and 2MB cache vs. 4MB) is another $235 on the model I want.

 

[Bradtechonline]

I'd say it's going to be very important due to memory limitations of 32bit hardware. With the price of ram being so cheap right now I bet a lot of software developers take advantage of the 4GB+ that people will start putting in their systems. I know my next rig is going to have 4GB.