Friday, September 26, 2008

Should I download Windows 7 Beta 64 or 32 bit? -

I m a little confused over the 64 vs 32 bit thing. I have a AMD 64 Athlon 4200+ X2 and 2gb of ram. I know it can run 64 bits but is there any improvements if I choose the 64 bit version? Will my computer perform better? Will my games (especially my games) perform better? Will I have compatible issues with software...? What is the advantage of 64 bit over 32 bit right now?

64-bit is head over heals better than 32-bit, But remember it is a BETA, your games may not work at all (although it is unlikely), and yes you will get a big performance gain with 64-bit. Just to be sure you can handle it you may want to use the 64-bit readiness tool on windows site to avoid any surprises.

64-bit is most certainly NOT quot;head over heelsquot; better than 32-bit. The performance benefits are only apparent when you re dealing with MASSIVE amounts of data, like creative content, video authoring, pro photography, audio mastery, etc. I m talking about professional-level massive data, not crappy Youtube videos on Windows Movie Maker, or dorky photo slideshows. That kind of normal, everyday computing will show absolutely no performance benefits; in fact, you may actually see a bit of a slow down. Most everyday computing uses very little data. Computers sold at the height of the Pentium 4 era were overkill for that kind of stuff. Today s multi-core, 64-bit processors are even more overkill. It s like saying quot;Man, I upgraded my CPU from 2.4GHz to 3.06GHz, and I can type Word documents soooo much faster!!quot; There is a certain point where performance becomes extraneous, and we ve reached that point years ago. It s like a Toyota versus a Ferrari. The performance benefit is achieved only under certain circumstances. It s clear which one has an advantage in a drag race, but they perform the same in everyday traffic. 64-bit device drivers aren t quite mature yet either. A lot of the Vista compatibility issues are because hardware vendors are dropping the ball with 64-bit drivers. Hell, most of the 64-bit capable systems sold today ship with 32-bit Vista preloaded, simply because of compatibility issues. Go with 32-bit for now, again, strictly for compatibility with your hardware. Don t adopt 64-bit unless you really have to. Wait until hardware vendors get going on 64-bit compatibility.

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