Windows 7: 64 bit (slow)?

I had a 32 bit and have a 64 bit windows 7 now on the same computer and I am finding out that the 64 bit is slower. Now is this my imagination or maybe I just have something screwed up on my 64 bit OS. What has been your experience because I am going to build a quad system and I'm not sure which one to put on it. I have an Intel E6550 now.

How much slower are you talking? I run Win 7 64 on my quad core machine with 8GB of RAM and am now running Win 7 64 on my dual core laptop with 4GB of RAM and my desktop is a bit faster...as you would expect. But I certainly don't feel that the 64-bit system is really any slower.

I guess it depends upon how much RAM you plan to have. I've got 8GB to support a handful of virtual machines...so 64-bit was my only real option.

With 4gigs of RAM 64bit must be faster then 32bit.
I have only 2gigs and 64bit is much faster then 32bit.

I've never really felt, noticed, or been able to time any tangible differences between average tasks with 64-bit. It's no slower...but I don't think it's tangibly faster either.

It's not tangibly faster, but I can feel the difference...
Maybe it's mine subjective opinion...
And not to mention that 32bit OS supports only 3.2gigs of RAM...

Yes, if you have more than 4GB of RAM..you have not real choice. My work laptop has 4GB of RAM and I opted for 32-bit to keep my install footprint as small as possible. My lappy only has a 160GB drive and it now boots Vista 32bit, Windows 7 32bit and Ubuntu 9.04 32bit. So, space is very much a concern for me.

@pparks1
Look at my system specs and see on what I'm running Win 7...
Interesting thing is that I have +0.3 greater WEI for my graphic gaming performance than I had in Vista...

If I were you, I would replace that 160GB old SATA drive with a newer version. It will absolutely smoke that old drive and give you a serious performance boost. And you can pick up a WD Caviar 640GB for like $65. Of course, this might not apply to you as you don't live in the states..as I do.

@pparks1
I will rebuild my computer next year....
Just waiting Dx11 cards to be released.

My unscientific feeling is that on my machine the Win 7 32 bit beta ran faster than the Win 64 bit 7 RC does now. And to add to the problem Palm does not have a 64 bit driver (that I have found), I am not a gamer so will probably install the 32 bit flavor when I get the final release. I have 4 GB ram with a E5200 Pentium processor.