Windows 7 64Bit Crossroad

simulous · 07 Aug 2009

Im painstakinly debating on weather or not to stick with 32 or move on to a 64 bit OS with Windows 7 RTM. At the moment im grabbing both from MSDN. Before i continue here are my system specs:

HP Pavilion dv5 1110em (Running Windows 7 RC 32Bit)
AMD Turion X2 64, RM-72 (2.1GHz 1mb L2)
ATI Mobility Radeon 3450 256 DDR2 (Dedicated)
3GB DDR 2

I use the laptop for HD Movies, the odd game (Half life 2, C&C Generals Zero hour, GTA SA, Halo 2), the internet and to run a Virtual server 2008 via Virtualbox to aid with my Microsoft studies.

I know that i will only really fully benifit from win 7 64 with 4gb of memory for various reasons, and i do plan on slapping another gig in eventually. But im just not sure weather or not its worth going 64 especially since i doubt ill ever reach the 4gb theashold with my day to day uses. should i go 64 to future proof? Im wondering what other beinifits there will be. i Heard that Half life 2 is optimized for 64bit cpu's so will half life 2 run any better with my current GPU and CPU too? It does tend to choke slightly set at 1024x768 depending on whats going on in the game, so will going 64 make any difference to this? when im running server 2008 via virtualbox i can happily get on with other things, there is a noticible difference to performance but nothing that stops me from doing other things.
So i reeeeeeallly dont know. Im going to do a fresh install today of windows 7 RTM Build, so i need to decide on which way to go.
Advice would be appreciated :)

visy199 · 07 Aug 2009

Read and see which fits to you!

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the x86-64 version?
The good:
* Support for more than 3 GB of RAM (with proper motherboard support; some older chipsets, like the Intel 945GM, do not allow the addressing of all 4 GB, even if your OS supports addressing all 4GB)
* Potentially faster execution resulting from the ability to operate on larger chunks of data and the addition of new registers (x86-32 being a register-starved architecture, this helps). This speed up requires that the program be compiled natively for x86-64, and the actual gain will vary from program to program.
* Future-proof. 32-bit will eventually die out one day. Could be many, many years down the road, though.
* Slightly more secure than the 32-bit version.
The bad:
* x86-64 requires more memory (and disk space) because the code is inherently larger, and because Windows has to also load the Wow64 libraries into memory (the stuff needed for backwards compat with 32-bit programs) (and keeping an extra set of DLLs around for 32-bit programs will eat up more disk space).
* All drivers must be signed. This is good (for security) but also bad (for small custom software that can't afford driver signing).
The ugly:
* You have to make sure that you have 64-bit drivers. Some manufacturers, such as Dell, haven't released 64-bit drivers for some of their older hardware.
* 32-bit shell extensions won't work.
* 16-bit programs don't work (not really a limitation of Windows, but of how AMD designed x86-64).

Antman · 07 Aug 2009

Now is a very good time, a perfect time, to configure for a dual boot. Install both with 64-bit set as default (install it last so it automatically sets itself as default).

This is the only way to find out for yourself and remove all supposition.

Try it - you'll like it.

If you don't, you can boot into 32-bit, delete the 64-bit partition and resize the 32-bit partition.

If you do like it, you can boot into 64-bit, delete the 32-bit partition and resize the 64-bit partition.

You are in a win-win situation.

nate42nd · 07 Aug 2009

I would not want to go back to 32bit after using 64bit. I have had one problem in a year. Some software on an external HD was not compatible. I probably could have made it work but didn't even want it.

It's nice to have the option to use the 64bit software (and hardware)

simulous · 08 Aug 2009

thank you for your replies. I think having a duel boot would be the best option, as antman says, its a win win situation.

thanks people. :)