32 bit vs 64 bit

[Skratt]

There is no reason not to install 64-bit, especially if you are going to put more RAM in later (and you will). I would go into a long technical explanation, but it would take more time than I have this moment. I am running Vista 64-bit, 4GB RAM and everything is smooth as butter.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

If you've only got 2 gigs of RAM, it doesn't matter much unless you plan to upgrade in the future.

32-bit Max RAM: Up to 3.95 gigs

64-bit Max RAM: Up to ... I think 16 gigs on Windows 7 Home Premium, and up to somewhere in the vicinity of 196 gigs for Professional and Ultimate.

what..in..the..fuu?

excluding skynet, who the hell uses 196 gigs of ram?!?!?!

 

[Danceofmasks]

what..in..the..fuu?

excluding skynet, who the hell uses 196 gigs of ram?!?!?!

"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates, 1981

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

what..in..the..fuu?

excluding skynet, who the hell uses 196 gigs of ram?!?!?!

"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates, 1981

okay okay okay..i understand the meaning of your quoting bill gates.

HOWEVER.

using more then 8-16 now a dayz isn't really needed, unless your rendering the living shit out of something down to nanometer pixel sizes, or your using some commercial program i've never used before. mainstream use beyond even 100 gigs i wont see happening for at least another 10-20 years with the way computers have moved on in the past 20 years.

 

[Danceofmasks]

what..in..the..fuu?

excluding skynet, who the hell uses 196 gigs of ram?!?!?!

"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates, 1981

okay okay okay..i understand the meaning of your quoting bill gates.

HOWEVER.

using more then 8-16 now a dayz isn't really needed, unless your rendering the living shit out of something down to nanometer pixel sizes, or your using some commercial program i've never used before. mainstream use beyond even 100 gigs i wont see happening for at least another 10-20 years with the way computers have moved on in the past 20 years.

No.

It's a general rule about PC computing that everything doubles (approximately) every 18 months.
Sure, RAM is slightly slower on the curve than everything else, but ... assuming it's 24 months for RAM (which is about right), we'll have over 150 gigs of RAM as a standard in about 10 years.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

what..in..the..fuu?

excluding skynet, who the hell uses 196 gigs of ram?!?!?!

"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates, 1981

okay okay okay..i understand the meaning of your quoting bill gates.

HOWEVER.

using more then 8-16 now a dayz isn't really needed, unless your rendering the living shit out of something down to nanometer pixel sizes, or your using some commercial program i've never used before. mainstream use beyond even 100 gigs i wont see happening for at least another 10-20 years with the way computers have moved on in the past 20 years.

No.

It's a general rule about PC computing that everything doubles (approximately) every 18 months.
Sure, RAM is slightly slower on the curve than everything else, but ... assuming it's 24 months for RAM (which is about right), we'll have over 150 gigs of RAM as a standard in about 10 years.

ha ehh..find me in 10 years and you can tell me i told you so. i dont see how 150 gigs of ram will be reasonable for everyday needs...but hey. that'd be a nice suprise.

 

[Worgen]

64-bit, but do try to get some RAM if you can.
It's dirt cheap next to the price of Windows 7, and will boost performance significantly.

the thing is my current mobo only has 2 ram slots so I cant just add ram, I need to buy 2 gig sticks

You could by RAM sticks that go above 2GB; they do sell 16GB(8x2) and so forth, but they tend to be more expensive.

if I buy more ram its just gonna be a couple 2 gig sticks since I can get that rather cheap, like 50 bucks, real ram gain will be when I get a new mobo that supports ddr 3 ram, right now Im stuck with ddr 2 so even if I do get more I dont want to spend allot doing it

 

[Danceofmasks]

what..in..the..fuu?

excluding skynet, who the hell uses 196 gigs of ram?!?!?!

"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates, 1981

okay okay okay..i understand the meaning of your quoting bill gates.

HOWEVER.

using more then 8-16 now a dayz isn't really needed, unless your rendering the living shit out of something down to nanometer pixel sizes, or your using some commercial program i've never used before. mainstream use beyond even 100 gigs i wont see happening for at least another 10-20 years with the way computers have moved on in the past 20 years.

No.

It's a general rule about PC computing that everything doubles (approximately) every 18 months.
Sure, RAM is slightly slower on the curve than everything else, but ... assuming it's 24 months for RAM (which is about right), we'll have over 150 gigs of RAM as a standard in about 10 years.

ha ehh..find me in 10 years and you can tell me i told you so. i dont see how 150 gigs of ram will be reasonable for everyday needs...but hey. that'd be a nice suprise.

Something standard in 5 years is a 1337 machine today. I have 8 Terabytes of hard drive space, and it's not the least bit excessive. Just saying.

The question I pose to you is: how many people are still using windows 98? Windows 2000? XP?

IF an operating system is written that does NOT support something that will be a standard in 10 years, that means its limit will be run into in 5 years.

The problem Bill Gates exacerbated back in '81 was the hard limit of 640K memory, which had to be circumvented with half assed tacked on solutions of "high memory" "expanded memory" "extended memory" ... all of which needed custom code, workarounds, and drivers to even get running.

Making a new operating system that does NOT support over 150 GB of RAM would be an idiotic repeat of a former mistake.

 

[bawkbawkboo1]

You guys should keep in mind that the 3.95GB limit also takes into account the GPU's onboard memory. For example, I need 64-bit because I have four gigs of system ram plus a GPU with 1GB graphics memory.

 

[jpoon]

Definitely go for 64, no point in limiting yourself for no reason, the smart buy would definitely be stepping into the future (x64) and avoiding the past (x86).

 

[EvanJO]

I'm pretty sure 64 bit operating systems can feasibly address ram into the terabytes, but I don't know who would ever use it.

Anyways, never mind the fact that you're actually paying for an OS, use the 64-bit version. Windows 7 is fast, snappy, and very clean on a computer that isn't from the 1990s.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Wait until 256-bit.

A modern byte-addressable 64-bit computer?with proper OS support can address 2^64 bytes (or 16 exbibytes) which as of 2011[update] is considered practically unlimited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_address#Word_size_versus_address_size

Wait a very very long time

 

[jamesworkshop]

I'm pretty sure 64 bit operating systems can feasibly address ram into the terabytes, but I don't know who would ever use it.

Anyways, never mind the fact that you're actually paying for an OS, use the 64-bit version. Windows 7 is fast, snappy, and very clean on a computer that isn't from the 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_address#Word_size_versus_address_size

A modern byte-addressable 64-bit computer?with proper OS support can address 2^64 bytes (or 16 exbibytes) which as of 2011[update] is considered practically unlimited.

terabyte (TB) 10^12

exbibyte (EiB) 2^60

 

[Fenring]

If you've only got 2 gigs of RAM, it doesn't matter much unless you plan to upgrade in the future.

32-bit Max RAM: Up to 3.95 gigs

64-bit Max RAM: Up to ... I think 16 gigs on Windows 7 Home Premium, and up to somewhere in the vicinity of 196 gigs for Professional and Ultimate.

It's 8 for Home basic and 192 for Pro and Ultimate.

Yeah, I know. I'm not correcting you, I'm just adding information that was relevant to your post.
I said Premium, not basic. Basic is only put on Netbooks and really low cost computers, and is only available direct from the manufacturer that is making the system.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

what..in..the..fuu?

excluding skynet, who the hell uses 196 gigs of ram?!?!?!

"Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!" -- Bill Gates, 1981

okay okay okay..i understand the meaning of your quoting bill gates.

HOWEVER.

using more then 8-16 now a dayz isn't really needed, unless your rendering the living shit out of something down to nanometer pixel sizes, or your using some commercial program i've never used before. mainstream use beyond even 100 gigs i wont see happening for at least another 10-20 years with the way computers have moved on in the past 20 years.

No.

It's a general rule about PC computing that everything doubles (approximately) every 18 months.
Sure, RAM is slightly slower on the curve than everything else, but ... assuming it's 24 months for RAM (which is about right), we'll have over 150 gigs of RAM as a standard in about 10 years.

ha ehh..find me in 10 years and you can tell me i told you so. i dont see how 150 gigs of ram will be reasonable for everyday needs...but hey. that'd be a nice suprise.

Something standard in 5 years is a 1337 machine today. I have 8 Terabytes of hard drive space, and it's not the least bit excessive. Just saying.

The question I pose to you is: how many people are still using windows 98? Windows 2000? XP?

IF an operating system is written that does NOT support something that will be a standard in 10 years, that means its limit will be run into in 5 years.

The problem Bill Gates exacerbated back in '81 was the hard limit of 640K memory, which had to be circumvented with half assed tacked on solutions of "high memory" "expanded memory" "extended memory" ... all of which needed custom code, workarounds, and drivers to even get running.

Making a new operating system that does NOT support over 150 GB of RAM would be an idiotic repeat of a former mistake.

i can agree to that, my machine was probably ridiculously elite 5 years ago, but just to be curious..

what the hell are you storing on your hard drive that takes up that much space? or do you just never delete anything, from your entire life?

 

[Danceofmasks]

what the hell are you storing on your hard drive that takes up that much space? or do you just never delete anything, from your entire life?

A fair bit of it is video processing.
For example, I uploaded a game of Mass Effect 2 to youtube.

Plus, there's a lot of redundancy in there 'cos hard drives fail more often than anything else in computers.
I never have to deal with the "omg my drive died I lost all my data" scenario.