What's the difference between the 32 bit and 64 bit OS?

Question

What's the difference between the 32 bit and 64 bit OS?

Answer 1

64-bit Operating Systems (OS) can hold up to 128GB of memory.

Data encryption can be 3 to 5 times faster with 64-bit.

32-bit can hold only up to 4 GB of RAM. So if you have 4 gigs of RAM and a 512mb video card, it will ignore 4GB of RAM and make it 3.5GB of RAM so your video card can work at its full potential.

Answer 2

64 bit words versus 32 bit words.  A word can contain data or an address of another word.  Because of the larger size, it can contain much larger addresses.  32 bit can address up to 3 gig of memory.  64 goes exponentially beyond that.

However, here's the rub.  Noone has written software for it yet.  When they do, it'll rip the doors off.   For the time being tho, the 64 will run everything in 32-bit emulation mode.  Might even be a tad slower then the regular 32.

If you intend on having the computer 5 years from no, go ahead and buy the 64.  That's probably around the time software will come out that is written for it.

Answer 3

64 bit can address more memory, 32 bit handles 4GB, 64 bit can address Terabytes.  It can also move information at twice the speed between the CPU and memory and has more native commands to support it's 64 bit mode.

Currently the downside is the 64-bit OSes have poor driver support and won't run some apps.  Some apps won't install at all because their installers are actually 16 bit executables which don't run on the 64-bit OSes.

When I built my new PC back in June I tried Vista-64 and XP-64, it didn't take me long to see they weren't very good for my needs and downgraded to XP-32.

Answer 4

I will use Windows Vista Home Premium as an example. The 32-bit version can only except up to 4GB of RAM and has other limitations. While the 64-bit version can have virtually limitless RAM, and doesn't have many limitations. 64-bit OS requires a CPU that can support a 64-bit operating system. A major downside to it though, is that some programs can't function on a 64-bit system. Unless you are an extreme power user, and are planning on adding more than 4GB of RAM, there is no point in getting a 64-bit OS. If you do want more RAM and are a power user, you can mail to Microsoft for a free 64-bit version of any retail copy of Vista Home Premium or Home Basic, while Vista Ultimate comes with a 32-bit and 64-bit version on the one disc.

Answer 5

64 faster