This should help boost the mainstream take-up of 64-bit computers. With multi-gigabyte memory sizes starting to feel a bit cramped, it’s rather important… 32-bit systems can’t address more than 4GB of memory, or even use all of that — my dearly-departed Dell was limited to 3.3GB of the 4GB I had installed in it, and it was better than most in that respect. The MacBook Pro that I’m writing this entry on has 4GB too, but since it’s a 64-bit system, it can actually use all of it. I plan to put in another 4GB eventually too; the hardware and OS will accept it, and with VMware Fusion I can put it to good use.
64-bit computers should be sufficient for quite a while. I hesitate to claim that they’ll be good for the rest of my natural lifetime, because I’m sure I’d be proven wrong, but it certainly looks that way right now.
I would agree since so far the only 64 bit software out there is operating systems and drivers and a handfull of system maintenance programs like virus scanners. So for the most part nobody’s even using or taking advantage of the 64 bit hardware because we’re still stuck with 32 bit software.
Come next year when I switch to Windows 7 I still plan to use the 32 bit version because there isn’t a single advantage for me to switch to a 64 bit operating system.
That depends on how much memory your system has. If you’ve got more than about 3GB, then a 64-bit OS will let you use all your memory — a 32-bit OS won’t.
Believe me with Vista you want 64 bits, because it uses about 2 gigs of RAM and you need all of the 4 gigs or more that you have of RAM for programs that you can get after that. Windows 7 may be better, but it still uses a lot of RAM compared to XP: you want 64 bits and 4 gigs or more of RAM with it. Or with any modern OS for that matter. (Though I was pretty happy with 2 gigs of RAM running Leopard.)
Make that “any modern commercial OS”, if you do no virtualization, Linux is happy in one gig or probably less.