Advantages of 64bit Vista?

Ive been hearing form numerous people that I should ocnsider 64bit being that I have 4gigs of RAM.

Is that true and what might be the benefits of 64 over 32?

 

64bit will read all 4gb of ram while 32 bit will read between 3.2 gb and 2.5 gb of the ram

 

Like the posted above, 64bit allows more ram, although if you have older software, or use certain programs, that are not compatible with 64bit, that's really the only downer.

 

The first benefit is that with a true 64 bit system you'll actually be able to use all of the RAM you have. With a 32 bit system you might have 4gb, but 32 bit systems only are able to utilize 3gb, so the extra gig is a waste. 64 bit systems also utilize VRAM as part of the overall system RAM usage.

Other advantages are better security and overall stability. You can learn a lot more at Start64.com

Note that your best benefits are if the system is engineered from the ground up to be 64 bit - if it's a 32 with a Vista 64 upgrade you won't get as much out of it.

In the past 64 bit systems were limited because not many software vendors certified their programs for use on 64 bit platforms. That has since changed - last year showed an exponential increase in the sales of 64 bit systems, and they now account for about 25% of all sales. Major software vendors like Adobe, McAfee and others have made the leap and all their programs are now certified 64 bit compliant. The list of vendors and programs increases by the day - 64 bit is here to stay.

Something else to consider is that true 64 bit systems have the ability to use a lot more than 4gb - in theory up to 128gb if the system is engineered to take that much. My own system will take and use a total of 8gb of DDR2 RAM. It's this feature coupled with the extreme drop in RAM prices that have made 64 bit systems more attractive for entertainment systems, or for designers/engineers/consultants like myself.

Like I said, 64 bit is here to stay - if you don't get one you'll be soon wishing you did.

 

Does the usage of the extra RAM actually make the computer faster?
Everyone has said that ill be able to use another gig of RAM but is speed the only benefit?
What programs will I not be able to use?

 

Hi

System Requirements are that the chipset and the processor support that size of RAM

1. If the OS supports that extra RAM the computer will be faster:
- Windows XP & Vista 32 Bit can Handle up to 3 (3,5) GByte
- Windows XP & Vista 64 Bit can Handle up to 128 GByte

2. Main benefit will be Speed other is you can use 64Bit Versions of Software which is specially designed for this and can do better works than the 32 Bit Version of it.

3. On Vista 64 Bit nearly every 32Bit Software will run without problems, but among the Memory Adressing it will use around 30% more Memory than it use if it runs on a 32Bit OS

regards
Christopher

 

Using x64 on a machine wth only 4GB is fairly pointless. Most average stuff runs slower on x64, and drivers are harder to find.

I wouldnt bother untill you get 8GB of RAM.

 

x64 has the advantage of higher speeds on certain operations (far higher speeds if it needs to do 64-bit integer operations), but the program must be specially compiled for x64 to be able to use the full power of the processor, or it would run in Wow (x32 compatibility layer), voiding the speed benefit.

The security is a mixed bag, it can make hacker attacks more difficult, BUT, PatchGuard does a lot of damage by disabling some of the ways Antivirus software use to protect computers, and what's worse is the fact that all versions of PatchGuard have been cracked

And I cannot see many people liking 8GB of RAM, since more than 4GB of memory seems to have disabled Hibernate for me with no way out except downgrading to 4GB

 

Say what ??? Vista 64 disables hibernate for > 4GB ???

 

http://www.tipandtrick.net/2008/windows-cannot-hibernate-computer-with-more-than-4-gb-memory/

Seems it has been disabled for performance reasons, and the only workaround listed is to downgrade the memory to 4GB (This is so Microsoft'ish :laugh