Windows 7 - Windows 7 x64 vs Windows 7 x86 (Fight)

Hello,

I have the exact same feeling. For example, my computer is an answering machine (phone), the modem driver is for XP only, still, it works with Vista and Seven. But I bet it won't in 64 bits. I bet that Symantec Talkworks won't work also.

I imagine how many headaches I would get just to try to make work all the drivers and softwares I want to use. I prefer having a slower computer than these headaches. BTW, my computer is very fast, the latest add (SSD) gave it a big speed improvement.

Interesting results. To be serious however, more results would have been needed. Winrar is one of the well know application to be faster on 64 bits, I wouldn't be surprised if VirtualDub is one too. Only testing application that take advantage of 64 bits is not an objective test.

The graphics are also misleading in my opinion, the first VirtualDub suggest a 50% advantage to the 64 bits when it is in reality only of 2%.

I understand your point, it is necessary for people to adopt 64 bits if we want to see more 64 bits program. It is all to the community advantage over time. Their is no need to make people dumb to arrive to this goal though. I don't want say that 64 bits is slower or faster, I only say that the picture isn't simple and clear as you might want us to believe.

Pom

edit: Indeed pointing to the fact that some old hardware may not work under 64 bits would have been the minimum.

wow, I didn't know that. so, is it fully working with DXVA H.264 hardware acceleration ?

btw, that page is cool. now I can always have the latest version. I think I might be getting an x64 Windows 7 copy soon along with another webcam (long overdue).

Nice. Thank you.

yeah i get dxva with hi def vids

I can use 64bit with my setup, but choose x86 because I do not like the 2 program files folders, and then having to dig for 64bit alternatives of the applications I like. x86 performs better for my system than 64.

Just found winrar x64 this morning.. i was a happy camper.

Most of those result stress the cpu and memory most which are obviously going to perform better with x64. However, the biggest bottleneck on a computer nowadays is the hard-drive and that is the thing that is stressed more by x64 during typical use.

I would hazzard a guess that even the hard-drive benchmark you ran only tested read-write performance on identical filesizes on both x64 and x86. In typical use the x64 system will be pushing anything upto twice the data back and forth to the hard-drive as the x86 system. The tests should allow for that fact.

Drivers aside of course. When drivers are an issue, you stick with what works...

I'm not sure where you got your stat on that, feel free to share, you might want to read up on DMA, tons of data transfers ocurr outside of CPU realm, which is then limited to your BUS speed and the 64 vs 32 architecture is irrelevant...

Pom, I only have so much time I can use during work:P The performance test did a pretty extensive test, so i don't feel bad.

Second, I used both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the software in the x64 OS. And I don't feel bad about the graphs, I just stuck the numbers into excel and let it graph it... Anyone who is actually interested in the difference would look at the times listed to the left, I agree tho, it does look mislead, twas unintentional.

Third, the point of the thing was to show that overall a 64 bit OS ran faster than a 32 bit os, despite the RAM (I only used 3). Whether or not you believe it really isn't an issue to me.

Fourth, I agree, where old hardware with a lack of drivers is an issue, stick with what works (as stated above). Granted, seeing as most hardware running a 64 bit machine is to some degree newer (AMD athlon was 2003, and Intel didn't come out with consumer 64 bit cpu's til a couple years later) most hardware is pretty well supported with 64 bit drivers. I know there are exceptions, but few, and that's an exception to the use 64 bit OS rule.

Sorry, but how does that relate to what I've said? Do you deny that 64bit apps and OS require upto twice the hard drive space/use as 32 bit apps and OS?

How about you test boot times, application load times etc. Maybe you could factor in increased fragmentation due to larger files and slower disk reads due to having to use slower portions of the disk. These issues wouldn't affect your idealised tests, but on average joes computer that has been in regular use for a year, they are enough to bring the system to a standstill.