Have you gone 64-bit? Impressions?

[Caydr]

TL;DR points are in BOLD for your convenience.

In case non-geeks read this and you're looking to build a computer soonish, you can take away one useful bit of advice right off the top: wait for better USB3 mobo support, and PCI-E v3 slots those should be your priorities. At the very least wait for 4x onboard USB3 to become a standard feature - and it's been proven that even PCI-E v2 x16 is a slight bottleneck for the latest GPUs, so the next generation of GPUs will have a big problem there. Finally, there won't be anything significant from AMD or Intel until Q1/Q2 2011, so if at all possible, wait until then if you're upgrading your whole platform.

My current PC build is an Asus P5B-E with a dual-core C2D 45nm @ 3.45 ghz, 4 gigs of DDR2 (3 gigs usable) @ 1150 mhz, Radeon 5850, SB X-Fi. Also, 4 1.5 tb hard drives, a 750 mb gb hard drive, 2 500 gb hard drives, and a 120 gb SSD. I figure when I build my next computer I'll use most of the above components (save for the Radeon) for a HTPC.

With the above system in mind, is there any software out there that's likely to be limited by my only having a 32 bit OS, 3 GB of addressable RAM, and only DDR-2 speeds? I have the fastest DDR-2 you can buy, which I thought meant "pretty damn nice" until I saw some benchmarks for DDR3... well over double my average bandwidth. I get about 5600 mb/s, fast DDR3 gets about 12,000 at least.

For example, I'm rendering in Max right now and it alone is using a 1gb for an extremely simple scene. I also use Terragen, which loves RAM, and Photoshop, which is increasingly in love with RAM.

A lot of guys here are geeks so I figured I'd ask, have many of you installed 64 bit OS's? What have your experiences been like? I was tempted to with Windows 7 but I'm still holding off because I've heard drivers are still only about 80-90% there, generally, and game developers have 64-bit compatibility/enhancements at the very bottom of their list of priorities.

Ideally for my next system I'd like 8 physical cores, with some hyperthreading implementation to bring that up to 16. 32/28nm for sure, and my next motherboard WILL have 2 PCI-E v3 x16 slots to keep future-proof. Finally, I'm going to get an absurd amount of superfast (DDR4 if possible) RAM so I'll be able to Terragen like a dog in heat.

[Mav]

I work as an engineer for a Formula SAE team at my university. We have two nearly-identical workstations. Both are Dell Precision T7400 workstations. Both have nVidia Quadro FX4500 (I think) video cards. The "slower" machine has a 3.0 Ghz quad-core CPU, the "faster" machine has two (for a total of 8 cores). The slower machine has 2 GB of Ram, and the faster one has 8.

That being said, we run Windows 7 32 bit on the slower workstation and 64 bit on the faster one. Both are good. Driver support has been simple and easy with no problems on both stations. There is one program (actually, a plugin for SolidWorks) that does not run on the 64 bit work station. Not a bug; the maker of the plugin says that its not designed to work in 64 bit. Besides that, there have been no other issues on the 64 bit station.

Do I recommend it? Yes.

/Yes, there are programs we use that will max out all 8 cores

[Forboding Angel]

Going 32bit when you can go 64 is retarded.

[CommanderKeen]

Apart from more RAM support is there any advantage to 64 bit over 32 bit?

I'm using windows 7 32 bit and have 64 bit sitting here but never bothered installing it because i only have 3 GB of RAM anyway and didn't see the point if there is no benefit and compatibly issues.

[Jazcash]

I used to have x32 bit. Now I use 264 bit. My impression of x64 bit is that it is twice as good as x32 bit. I thank you.

[Forboding Angel]

Apart from more RAM support is there any advantage to 64 bit over 32 bit?

Try thinking this through. After all, is 32 bit any better than 16 bit? Perhaps we should bring back ISA.

[Umbra]

The only issues I have with x64 is drivers. I believe I first made the switch from x86 to x64 because of x86 support being dropped in favor of x64 for an essential driver.

I've also noticed a speed increase in a few areas, however I'm uncertain whether that's because of x64 or because of something written differently(and better) in the x64 version vs the x86.

Overall, if you can make the switch, and you have the drivers, then there shouldn't be a reason why you should stick with x86 anymore.

[Jazcash]

I use x64 bit mainly so I can haz 8 rams instead of 4.

[Das Bruce]

Apart from more RAM support is there any advantage to 64 bit over 32 bit?

Try thinking this through. After all, is 32 bit any better than 16 bit? Perhaps we should bring back ISA.

I think they were implying that it might not be hot shit yet because not everything has been optimised for it, much in the same way things wouldn't have been optimised for 32bit computers when they first came out.

[Umbra]

I'd say the switch to x64 is a must when you have any major software that has x64 support. Major software that has x64 usually also run just as fast as x86, if not faster(and better), due to the companies putting effort into optimizations for x64.

So far I haven't experienced any slowdowns in any x86 software running on x64 systems, so that shouldn't be an issue.

[Master-Athmos]

Unless you don't have some very aged hardware like printers around you won't be able to get to work with a 64Bit OS (and you don't want to buy new stuff) you should stay at 32Bit. Going for 64Bit is nice but its advantages are small. The biggest one is about using more than 4GB ram but for home users this rarely has any practical advantage as even games still run fine with 4GB around. The number of programs optimized for 64Bit also are very small and the performance advantages are nice but they won't skyrocket your machine's workpower...

The good thing probably is that compatibility issues with 32Bit software are next to non-existant so usually every 32Bit software also should run on your 64Bit OS...

So when buying a new PC and having the choice between the two versions go for the 64Bit one unless as said you don't have very aged stuff around you definitely need to use. When already owning a 32Bit version of Vista or 7 I wouldn't recommend to pay for a 64Bit upgrade unless you do number crunching or rendering 24/7...

[Auswaschbar]

Having used 64bit linux for a long time, I can confirm there is no reason to use 32bit OS when you have a 64bit capable CPU and more than 1 GB of RAM. Apart from some games, all applications are 64bit, and in some cases (compiling, video encoding) there is a nice performance gain.

Regarding drivers, almost all of them are available for 64bit, so that isn't a problem either.

[Forboding Angel]

I use x64 bit mainly so I can haz 8 rams instead of 3.

Fixed

[Tribulex]

personally i recommend 128bit. you can have more rams and also windows 8.

[Caydr]

So no problems to report running x86 software on a 64-bit OS then? My main concern is losing support for some of my favorite old games which can just barely be compelled to run as it is. Tie Fighter, as one random example, which I still haven't finished.

personally i recommend 128bit. you can have more rams and also windows 8.

That was debunked. While MS is certainly keeping itself open to future things like 128-bit CPUs, they're at the bottom of the priority list. There are also no 128-bit CPUs being made or planned for anytime soon, certainly not in the consumer space.

[Jazcash]

I use x64 bit mainly so I can haz 8 rams instead of 3.2.

Fixed

Fixed

[Master-Athmos]

So no problems to report running x86 software on a 64-bit OS then? My main concern is losing support for some of my favorite old games which can just barely be compelled to run as it is. Tie Fighter, as one random example, which I still haven't finished.

Apart from a 64Bit OS of course still being x86 that actually is no problem after all for games THAT old. Simply fire up DosBox and unless you don't have the weakest 64Bit Sempron/Celeron CPU there ever was it should run just fine...

[CommanderKeen]

Apart from more RAM support is there any advantage to 64 bit over 32 bit?

Try thinking this through. After all, is 32 bit any better than 16 bit? Perhaps we should bring back ISA.

hmm i wouldn't know first hand oldest computer Ive used is a 386, but i would think the speed increase would mostly be due to higher frequency CPUS with more transistors. And no you wont be bring back ISA you filthy hippy.

I don't know what your infatuation is with 64 bit is but it cant be all good if its been out for 5 years and 32 bit is still more popular.

I didn't ask for a sarcastic response to point out that i don't know (which was made obvious when i asked the question) and how clever you are. sometimes i think well read people can be the most stupid.

MORON

[1v0ry_k1ng]

2x more bits thann 322 bit

[Forboding Angel]

@commanderkeen: You're arguing that 64bit has no benefits over 32bit and you proceed to call me a moron?

Reality check, 32bit is not more popular, it is simply the thing that is used most. Take a wild guess why that is? Could it be that vista was a powerhungry resource eater that made average users quiver in fear thereby keeping people using 32bit xp? Could it be the fact that 64bit XP blew asschunks and had horrible USB support?

Jesus Christ on a dick, just shut up and sit down before you look more like an idiot.

Shall I mention that one of my customers (translation agency) is still using wordperfect 5.1 for dos in windows 7 64bit with 0 issues?