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I was just wondering what the advantages of a 64 bit operating system
are. I realize you can access over 4GB of memory without any fuss, but
are there other obvious benefits to the end user?

Thanks.

The bits really are nothing much more than the width of the Data-Path - it's
like a freeway, if you have one hour going from A to B and the freeway isn't
filled at the time, then doubling the number of lanes wouldn't halve, or
even reduce your travel time.

So, the only way to know if you need it, is to evaluate how filled is your
data-path now, and how much data would you be needing to push through?

There is generally no speed advantage from going to 64bits alone, you may be
able to turn more memory into good use and depending on what is the OS,
design philosofy of the system may be a bonus, even in a 32bit situation.
That is often the case with XP x64, not because it is 64bit, but because it
is well designed, and this design was implemented because it is 64bit.


Tony. . .


<> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> I was just wondering what the advantages of a 64 bit operating system
> are. I realize you can access over 4GB of memory without any fuss, but
> are there other obvious benefits to the end user?
>
> Thanks.
>

You can spend a week discussing this if you find the right people and have
enough beer/pizza.

At a very high level, you have the _capacity_ for better performance or
little/no performance degradation as you run larger, more complex
application. This is a generalization of course and not often true with
32-bit apps running on a 64-bit OS/hardware. When the apps vendors move to
64-bit compilers, this becomes real.

A few points to ponder:
1. What applications are you running?
Different apps will benefit (or not) at varying levels. This has to do with
how the application consumes resources (how much and how quickly it consumes
it). That's why I say you have the capacity. Whether you use it or not,
that's up to your app.

2. What 64-bit platform are your looking at?
x64 is very different from IA64. There are technical pros & cons to each,
not to mention financial and operational. However one key point to remember
here is that you cannot discuss this by just comparing CPUs. You need to
consider the entire server platform (chipsets, bus architecture, cache
sizes, etc...)

3. In a couple of years, it wouldn't really matter anymore.
Already the case for servers - I have not worked on a new 32-bit server in
the past 1.5 years (but I'm a database guy so my experience is skewed).
Desktops and notebooks are catching up - you can already get a dual-core,
x64 laptop with 4GB of RAM today.


joe.


<> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
>I was just wondering what the advantages of a 64 bit operating system
> are. I realize you can access over 4GB of memory without any fuss, but
> are there other obvious benefits to the end user?
>
> Thanks.
>

Bob:
There's a useful whitepaper on the Windows XP 64bit web site that I
think should help you decide:
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...ght_for_Me.doc
Compliments of Charlie Russel. Have a great day.

--
Dennis Pack
XP x64, Vista Enterprise x64
Office2007
<> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
>I was just wondering what the advantages of a 64 bit operating system
> are. I realize you can access over 4GB of memory without any fuss, but
> are there other obvious benefits to the end user?
>
> Thanks.
>