With the upcoming release of Windows 7, the question is raised again on whether you should install the 32-bit version (x86) of the operating system or move up to 64-bit (x64).
This is something that's been asked since the introduction of consumer-level processors bearing the “x64” nomenclature. It feels like just yesterday that Intel and AMD fanboys were at odds over the Athlon 64. At that time and even as recently as the introduction of Windows Vista, software and drivers for 64-bit setups were slim-pickings.
If your old video card and printer have yet to receive 64-bit compatible drivers, odds are they won’t be getting any. A boatload of legacy hardware support was dropped with Windows Vista, and Windows 7 certainly won’t pick it back up, regardless of which version you install.
You’re probably wondering why 64-bit operating systems are being phased in and what benefits they deliver over their 32-bit predecessors – both legitimate questions. One of the most commonly cited differences is that the 32-bit architecture has a memory access limit of 4GB (2^32 bytes). This permits you to use about 2.75-3.5GB of RAM after IO reservations are factored in.
On paper, the 64-bit architecture can address 16 exabytes of memory (2^64), or more than 4 billion times that of its precursor. Consumer editions of Windows Vista permit from 8GB to 128GB of physical memory to be accessed, depending on the version. Windows 7 bumps that up to 192GB with the Professional version and above.
More: http://www.techspot.com/guides/177-windows-install-32bit-64bit/
This is something that's been asked since the introduction of consumer-level processors bearing the “x64” nomenclature. It feels like just yesterday that Intel and AMD fanboys were at odds over the Athlon 64. At that time and even as recently as the introduction of Windows Vista, software and drivers for 64-bit setups were slim-pickings.
If your old video card and printer have yet to receive 64-bit compatible drivers, odds are they won’t be getting any. A boatload of legacy hardware support was dropped with Windows Vista, and Windows 7 certainly won’t pick it back up, regardless of which version you install.
You’re probably wondering why 64-bit operating systems are being phased in and what benefits they deliver over their 32-bit predecessors – both legitimate questions. One of the most commonly cited differences is that the 32-bit architecture has a memory access limit of 4GB (2^32 bytes). This permits you to use about 2.75-3.5GB of RAM after IO reservations are factored in.
On paper, the 64-bit architecture can address 16 exabytes of memory (2^64), or more than 4 billion times that of its precursor. Consumer editions of Windows Vista permit from 8GB to 128GB of physical memory to be accessed, depending on the version. Windows 7 bumps that up to 192GB with the Professional version and above.
More: http://www.techspot.com/guides/177-windows-install-32bit-64bit/