Running 64-bit applications on a 64-bit OS doesn't yield clear cut results in these types of benchmarks. Part of the problem is the relatively small data sets used in the 3D rendering tests, where most of the pure 64-bit benchmarks were run. We'll be looking into larger data set rendering tests for future use. If anything, the Cinebench 10 test indicates what moving to 64-bit can do, under the right conditions.
With video and photographic applications, you'll also see mixed performance—some things will run faster, some cases slower.
The results for gaming was the most intriguing. As many users may have experienced, particularly with games like Crysis and Supreme Commander, modern PC games often push up against the 2GB limit. Given that an application gets its own 2GB partition when running on 64-bit Vista, that means a big game gets just a bit more memory than it would on a 32-bit OS.
On the other hand, 32-bit apps running on Vista 64 have to "thunk" through the WoW64 (Windows on Windows") subsystem, which is how 32-bit Windows apps run on Vista 64-bit. With games, at least, it seems that having that extra bit of space in the memory partition helps more than the thunking hurts.
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