Difference between 32bit and 64bit

I've been debating over a Core 2 duo processor (T7200), and the Core Duo (T2500). On newegg, the T7200 is out of stock, and the 2 differences between the processors that i see are 4mb cache (T7200), and 64bit support (T7200). Whats the difference between 32bit processors and 64bit processors, will laptops be using 64bit anytime soon?

 

When Vista comes out, 64bit will be required to get the best performance out of it. I am not sure what the differences are exactly, but I know that someone will come soon and awnser them. I kinda want to know myself.

 

There are plenty of advantages to 64 bit, but almost none of them apply to current PC's (especially not notebooks)

First, you only benefit from it if you have:
- A 64-bit capable CPU
- A 64-bit OS (Windows x64 or Vista 64 bit)
- Programs that run 64 bit. (These are hard to find)

Second, the benefits are:
- Slightly better performance (Say, 10% or so)
- The ability to address more than 4GB of memory (which current PC's can't physically handle anyway, so that one is mostly useless... You could use it to make a humongous pagefile to support applications that need more memory than you have, but it'd be slow, and I don't know of many applications that need it.
- The ability to process bigger numbers in one operation. Which only really matter for some scientific simulators or possibly *really* big servers or database.

The main thing is that sooner or later, 64-bit is going to be the standard, which means 32-bit versions of software simply won't be updated or released.
But that's still a few years away. (In 5 years we might start to see this happen, but it might take even longer)

 

Jalf is right. It will be a while (at least a couple of years) before 64-bit computing really becomes widespread.