Would I benefit from 64bit Win7?

Hello all

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T61p with 3gb of RAM, and am looking to purchase a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit upgrade. Right now I run Windows XP Professional, 32-bit version. I'm wondering if I should expect an appreciable increase in performance when switching from 32 to 64-bit OS. I know people mainly get a 64bit OS to utilize their 4+ gb of RAM, but this will not be the case for me.

I also know certain hardware as well as software programs will have compatibility issues, but I do not expect much issues. The only software I use on a regular basis is Microsoft Office 07 anyway.

Thanks for any insights you all can provide.

 

No not with 3GB of RAM. If you plan on getting 4 or more gigs of RAM then use you will need to get 64bit. Even still I would go 64bit regardless. But that's just me.

 

If you're a techie like me, go for 64-bit. If some old program or peripheral doesn't work, you can always find an alternative. Programs with a 64-bit binary will run a bit faster. And if you ever want to upgrade the RAM, no problem.

If you're the type to freak out if there's ever any incompatibility with anything, then go for 32-bit.

 

I think most people around here agree that 64 bit has multiple benefits aside from just more address space.

My laptop also has 3GB of RAM and I use 64 bit Vista.

 

Only reason i use 64bit on my desktop is because of the 8gb ram.. its a POS i like x86 way better.

 

You won't notice any appreciable difference in day to day useage (I certainly didn't), only if you're needing to use more than 3GB (coding video/gaming etc) will it really make a difference. If you want to have a quick look at how different a 64bit OS is, download/install win7 x64 on a separate partition and have a play around. 32bit/64bit were roughly the same speed for me.

 

You must be talking about XP then.
...I hope.
Please god tell me you're not talking about Vista/7.

 

if you have a 64bit capable cpu, why not take advantage of it? im been rocking windows 7 64 and its the fastest i have even tried windows xp included.

 

Sounds like a can't lose situation as far as I'm concerned. I'll be going for the 64-bit then, thanks everyone.

 

The predominant misconception conveyed in these and other forums is there is no benefit to a 64-bit o/s if the user has less than 4GB of memory.

Not true.

There are a lot of other reasons to move to a 64-bit environment. A multicore processor will be fully utilized and there are positive security features inherent in 64-bit opposed to 32-bit.

The only limiting factor would be drivers for particular hardware. As a general rule of thumb, if the components are no more than two years old then chances are good 64-bit will be supported.

 

Agreed with you. My old desktop-pc(core2duo 2.0, 3gb ram) runs faster with Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit instead of 32bit.
64bit OSes are more secure and stable too.

 

I think this topic may of just convinced me to switch to 64-bit once Windows 7 is released in October, I was hesitant because I only have 2GB of RAM, so thanks very much!

 

The notebook you have could have more ram for pretty cheap.

 

64-bit Windows 7 runs pretty well with 2 GB of RAM.

 

There are security benefits, at least in Vista, with 64-bit, although I couldn't name what they are. In terms of everyday performance, I haven't been able to tell a difference. 64-bit XP isn't noticeably faster than 32-bit XP*, and 64-bit Win7 wasn't noticeable faster than 32-bit XP, either, in my experience (although it was noticeably faster than 32-bit Vista, but so was 32-bit XP). If you're running a very intensive program that's available in 64-bit and 32-bit versions, you hopefully will see a difference, but I haven't seen that much intensive general-purpose software available in 64-bit yet.

The other disadvantage is that 64-bit tends to use more memory. 25% is an oft-cited figure, but it does depend on what you're doing. At 3 GB that likely won't be an issue, but at 2 GB it may occasionally be, and at 1 or 1.5 GB I'd definitely take 32-bit. Even with 4 GB of memory, though, you might not be getting an increase in the available RAM by switching from 32-bit to 64-bit (depending on a number of factors).

* - The one area I have seen a drastic speed increase is that Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel. For whatever reason it's drastically faster in 64-bit XP than 32-bit, even with many more programs installed in the 64-bit version. Not sure exactly why, but certainly not complaining.

In onionknight28's case, I'd say there probably won't be a problem either way, nor any great benefits either way. Check to make sure your printer/scanner/other important peripherals will work with 64-bit, but if they do, I see no reason not to try 64-bit.

 

As for the security benefits of 64bit vs. 32bit, there are multiple instructions available to the CPU with x86_64 that aren't available on x86_32 that make many security operations faster. You also run into the fact that many rootkit style viruses are built to run on 32bit systems. They just won't work on 64bit Windows.

Quick rundown: http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/64-Bit-Windows-More-Secure.html

Overall though, it's not as if 64bit is an impenetrable fortress and 32bit is swiss cheese.

 

Was that aimed at me or the OP?
If me, I would but my current setup uses 2x1GB so to upgrade (i'd go to 4GB rather than 3) i'd need 2x2GB modules which would cost me about £50

That's good to know, do you use 2GB? If so have you noticed any slow down or "screen lag" (whatever you want to call it)

 

I had installed Win 7 RC with 2 GB RAM and after sometime upgraded to 4 GB. I don't notice any difference in performance with the increase in RAM.

 

Ah excellent!
I'll hold fire on upgrading to 4GB of RAM then. To be honest though, I don't think the things I use my notebook for (Games, Watching High definition movies and general tasks) would benefit too much from the extra RAM anyways