walsufnir said:
freedquaker said:
jack100 said:
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I did a little research and found the x86-64, which theorically see 128 GIGS on RAM. Of course I was confused a little since I haven't done hardware stuff in a while. More reseatrch revealed that x84-62 uses twice as much CPU power as a X64 processor since you constantly have to swap bits in the RAM on x86-64.
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You didn't have to upgrade to 64 bit just to access more than 4 GB RAM. That's a very bad excuse. The future is 64 bit, so if you want to go 64 bit, please go by all means, but currently, the vast majority of software is either written in 32 bit or have 32 bit versions (I am yet to find a single program that doesn't run on 32 bit). Besides, there are also very few programs that run faster at 64 bit than 32 bit, but there are a substantial amount of programs that run either faster or more efficiently on 32 bit.
This being said, it is very easy to have access up to 64 GB RAM on a 32 bit Windows 7. You just need to patch the Windows with PAE (this is not a hack, the code is IN THE WINDOWS KERNEL). The patch just activates it. There are programs that do this automatically. Here is a common one.
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/make-windows-7-and-vista-32-bit-x86-support-more-than-4gb-memory/
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And why not just install the 64 bit version? There is no disadvantage as you can run 32bit-code in a 64bit environment.
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There are a lot of disadvantages with 64 bit (but of course it depends how much it matters to you)
-64 bit Win7 uses almost twice as much RAM
-64 bit uses more CPU processes and more CPU time
-64 bit version almost takes twice the Hard disc space
-64 bit version is slightly slower in many 32 bit apps (85% of my software)
-64 bit version is incompatible with many 32 bit software (10-20 % of my pprograms)
-64 bit version creates a separate directory for program files, adding to the mess
-64 bit version is less customizable in deep system settings, 32 bit is easier to slim down
etc...
Basically as of now, there is absolutely no benefit that I get from the 64 bit, but lots of costs! This gets a lot worse when your PC is older.
