Should i install 64 bit windows 7?

[gaz]

Hello,
I have i retail copy of Windows 7 which comes with both x86 & x64 discs
and wondering Is it worth installing the x64 bit version as a lot of technologies seem to be heading in that direction

my PC has 4GB Ram
1GB Geforce Graphics Card
2.2 Ghz processor
300 GB HDD

Any thoughts people please

 

[Lemur]

Yes, install it.

If you install 32-bit OS, you will NOT be able to upgrade to 64-bit. Instead, you will need to do a clean install.

Installing 64-bit will allow you to take advantage of your 4GB of memory (or more, if you install it). 32-bit will use < 4 GB.

New software for Windows is increasingly moving in the direction of 64-bit.

There are many other reasons, but when it comes down to it, just do it.

 

[pparks1]

Install it without putting in your cdkey and activating it. Try it out and make sure all of your software and external hardware devices work with it. If all is fine, put your key in and activate it.

 

[Keiichi25]

I would go with Pparks on this one. To be honest though, you might not need the 64 bit if you are going to stick with 4 gigs of ram and not really use memory too heavily.

When you run before activating, keep an eye on your memory. Ignore the 'Free' memory part, focus more on the 'Available'. If you notice that your available memory is pretty low, like less than half a gig, consider staying with 64 bit if you have the drivers that will allow you to run in 64. You may also want to consider seeing if you can put more RAM to increase performance if you still hit below 512 megs of available ram.

 

[gaz]

I would go with Pparks on this one. To be honest though, you might not need the 64 bit if you are going to stick with 4 gigs of ram and not really use memory too heavily.

When you run before activating, keep an eye on your memory. Ignore the 'Free' memory part, focus more on the 'Available'. If you notice that your available memory is pretty low, like less than half a gig, consider staying with 64 bit if you have the drivers that will allow you to run in 64. You may also want to consider seeing if you can put more RAM to increase performance if you still hit below 512 megs of available ram.

Thanks for all replies and does it definately allow you to use more RAM??
If so i am willing to buy some more,no problems

thanks again

 

[Keiichi25]

The current issue with 32 Bit operating systems is that it can only realistically address up to 4 gigs of RAM. IE: It will only use 4 Gigs out of however much RAM you throw onto the system. The OS will see roughly 3 to 3.75 of the 4 Gigs depending on how the computer's hardware tries to eat the memory up for reservation, in my case, my computer would only see 3 gigs out of 4 I had, for others, they would see about 3.5 gigs.

64 Bit allows for a higher addressing range to look at memory, but the programs can be limited based on their coding of how much memory they can really use. The benefit of 64 bit is mostly seen with 64 bit coded programs (Like serious number crunching ones) as well as RAM addressing, but having the ability to address more RAM space is a big one for most heavy program users where they want performance, but watching their system slow down due to having a lot of memory heavy programs causing Virtual Memory disk swapping.