32 or 64 bit Vista?

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CLKeenan

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Jun 24, 2006
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Here are my laptop specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 processor at 2.0 GHz
(4 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB, 64-bit CPU)
4GB RAM DDR2 PC2-6400 (Just upgraded to some Crucial RAM)
160GB 5400RPM hard drive with Intel Turbo Memory hard drive cache
128MB NVIDIA Quadra NVS 140M graphic processing unit

Would you recommend 32 or 64 bit?
 


Make sure 64 bit drivers are available! 32bit and 64bit drivers are not the same.
Btw. no matter if 64 or 32, both wont recognize more than 3 GB RAM. The problem for that is the so called PCI Hole
 
I'm using Vista 64bit on my macbook (non-pro, early 2008). It works great with the core2 duo chip. And since my macbook can (unofficially) support up to 6GB of rams, Vista will be able to use all of that when I do upgrade.

CLKeenan said:
Ive heard otherwise... could be wrong. let me find a link
Click to expand...

Well either way you definitely won't see more than 4GB max with 32bit version of windows. Also the PCI hole depending on the motherboard artitecture would limit the accessible memory to about 3.3GB on a 32bit system.

One thing I don't like, and it's not even microsoft's fault. Adobe has yet to provide a 64bit version of the Flash Plugin. So if you want to do anything with flash you have to use the default (32bit) version of Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can run IE64 or Firefox 64 but you won't be able to use the flash player plugin. (The only platform that truely has 64bit flash plugin just recently was the linux platform). Not sure why adobe is dragging their asses, been an issue since XP64, and Vista64 is much more stable and market friendly. (oddly I wouldn't say the same of Vista32).

Stability is very good for me, but thats probably because I already have the correct set of drivers provided by Apple's bootcamp software. (though I downloaded the X3100 driver directly from intel). And because I'm not using a macbook pro I did have to use a hacked version of the boot camp installer just to get the keyboard functionalities.

Based on the OP's specs, I'm going to think that he'll loose some of his 4GB of ram if going 32bit. But if you already got a 64bit processor like the Core2 Duo... why not get a 64bit operating system if stable drivers exist for it.
 
Thanks for the good post Karl. I meant that I would most likely see the full 4GB if I had the 64 bit edition. Firewire seemed to be implying that I wouldnt see the 4GB even if I had 64 which I dont think is the case.
 
CLKeenan said:
Thanks for the good post Karl. I meant that I would most likely see the full 4GB if I had the 64 bit edition. Firewire seemed to be implying that I wouldnt see the 4GB even if I had 64 which I dont think is the case.
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You're correct, if you are using a 64bit OS on a new Core2 Duo system (or the equivilent newer AMD64 platform) you'll see the 4GB, the exception of course would be shared memory given to say an intergrated video chipset.

I know some of the older intel motherboards with the early iterations of 64bit processors definitly had a memory limit due to the board configuration but that should no longer be the issue unless you are running a 32bit OS.
 
Running 64-bit with 4GB without any hassles so go with that but make sure you don't need BETA drivers installed. Vista is pretty stable if you do a clean nice setup :)
 
Vista will recognize the 64 bit. In that article it pointed to the Bios being the problem but I doubt newer Bios from the past couple of years would not be able to recognize a 64 bit OS. Definitely go with the 64 Bit. As far as the memory limits 32 bit == 2^32 == 4294967296 == basically 4GB. 64 bit == 2^64 == a whole hell of a lot more.
 
Personally, I'd stick with 32 bit for now, especially if you have any older hardware. If your gfx card(s) can use system memory then it won't be wasted (I'm guessing the 128Mb card might use the same of system RAM?).

Also (I guess most of ya know this), enabling dual channels makes a big difference. For me, 3Gb dual channel matched pairs massively outperforms 4Gb single channel.
 
Running vista 64 bit here with 8GB of ram. A 32bit os can't recognize more than 3GB an 64bit os can manage several TB of memory. Never had a single issue with vista 64 and i've been running it since beta 1
 
firewire said:
Make sure 64 bit drivers are available! 32bit and 64bit drivers are not the same.
Btw. no matter if 64 or 32, both wont recognize more than 3 GB RAM. The problem for that is the so called PCI Hole
Click to expand...

Completely incorrect. A 64 bit OS will certainly recognize and address more than 4gb of ram. I'm running 8 on my desktop.
 
LazyHippy said:
Personally, I'd stick with 32 bit for now, especially if you have any older hardware. If your gfx card(s) can use system memory then it won't be wasted (I'm guessing the 128Mb card might use the same of system RAM?).

Also (I guess most of ya know this), enabling dual channels makes a big difference. For me, 3Gb dual channel matched pairs massively outperforms 4Gb single channel.
Click to expand...

I dont think my laptop is capable of running dual channel ram unfortunately :(
 
1EightT said:
Running vista 64 bit here with 8GB of ram. A 32bit os can't recognize more than 3GB an 64bit os can manage several TB of memory. Never had a single issue with vista 64 and i've been running it since beta 1
Click to expand...

The term they officially give it is VLM which litterally means Very Large Memory. :p

Basically you benefit in three ways
- Programs access files larger than 4GB (NTFS, Mac OSX Extened, EXT2/3 partitions)
- Programs can access larger than 4GB of ram as needed (so less time swapping the harddrive)
- Programs can send more data to the processor per cycle (As it stands this only increases performance up to around 30% max, but keep in mind most of our existing 64bit OSes such as Vista64 and OSX leopard are still backward compatible to 32bit software, I think a pure 64bit OS would improve this further).

At least hardware drivers are required to be written for 64bit, as such kind of a forced stability (in theory, depending on if the manufacture does a crap job or not writing them)
 
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