What does it mean 64 bit Vista Required?

Plan to buy 570RU. I want 4GB of ram--why not, ram is cheap enough. Vendors state that this requires 64 bit Vista. Some vendors even state that machine will come with 64bit Vista installed? What does this mean exactly? If 64bit Vista is installed, does this mean I need to reinstall 32bit to run my 32bit apps?

Most of my work is CAD/3D related and none of these apps are 64 bit that I am aware.

 

64 bit has issues when it comes to comatibility (don't think i spelled that right). SOme prgrams work and some don't *sigh* you never know

 

Vista comes in a 32-bit version and a 64-bit version, I am not sure about buying it from a retail store but I know that the resellers like powernotebook and xoticpc.com give you both the 32-bit and 64-bit CD.

Yes you can only run one OS at a time unless you have partitions on your hard drive or 2 hard drives running 1 OS on each.

Usually the resellers just give you the CD and you can install it yourself, it's very easy.

 

From the little research i have done in this field, i know that 32 bit programs will run on a 64 bit operating system, but there might be a slight memory penalty (since you have 4 gb, it shouldn't matter at all). Here's what Wiki says:

The main disadvantage of 64-bit architectures is that relative to 32-bit architectures the same data occupies slightly more space in memory (due to swollen pointers and possibly other types and alignment padding). This increases the memory requirements of a given process and can have implications for efficient processor cache utilization. Maintaining a partial 32-bit model is one way to handle this and is in general reasonably effective. In fact, the highly performance-oriented z/OS operating system takes this approach currently, requiring program code to reside in any number of 32-bit address spaces while data objects can (optionally) reside in 64-bit regions..

Also, after doing some research, I discovered a nice comparison between the 32 bit windows xp and the new 64 bit vista, it showed that CAD and other 3d modeling programs ran up to 90% slower on the 64 bit system. If you plan on doing a lot of cad work, get something that supports XP and run that instead.

 

my understanding is that a 32-bit OS cant use more than like 3gb of ram. You require a 64-bit OS to actually be able to use all of the 4gb of ram.

 

32-bit=3.2 gigs of RAM
64-bit=4 gigs of RAM.

 

The 3.2GB is system dependant. Some systems might show more than 3.2, some less, but no 32-bit OS will ever show all 4GB, and usually you won't see more than 3.5GB max.

 

These questions are discussed well in this Sticky at the top of this forum

 

So looks like they don't want you calling up saying hey, whats going on? I bet they would sell it to you. So go for it! If they won't, buy it for less on your own.

 

They wouldn't need to tell you, if you made a complaint about it they would just it was noted on the configuration very clearly.

4 gigs RAM(2 sodimm) 64-bit vista OS required.

 

So? We all agree? Go for it! Good luck!

 

Does this also mean that if one switched backed to 32 bit OS, the system would only recognize 3 gb instead of 4 and also will use dual channel for that 3 GB of RAM?

 

if you have a dual-core processor and you have 2 sodimms of RAM in your system it will use dual-channel.

Yes, if you switched back to 32-bit it would only recognize 3 gigs of RAM.

 

3GB will be the most it will address, but with your video card and other overhead it will probably be closer to 2.5GB