What is the advantage in a 64bit processor

I don't really understand the difference between 32 and 64 bit processors.. What exactly does that mean? If i have a 64bit processor and i get 64bit xp, will i be able to play 32bit games or what? I'm so confused.

right now there is no advantage because not many programs (I can think of one Firefox) is written for 64bit right now. Its basically future proofing.

Like dicecca said its future proof, down the road you will see more and more 64bit games and other software coming out.

As long as all the parts you get for the computer have 64bit drivers, you can run 32bit programs (under a 64bit operating system). You'll notice more benefits once programs start to be 64bit too, but alot of people are claiming the 64bit windows xp is smoother.

FarCry with 64bit drivers looks much better than regular/32bit

Another Advantage

Something has to be said about how strong the A64's run games(even 32-bit games)

The way the FSB is set up, might make a small difference.... wouldnt it?

I seem to notice my 64 running better than my old athlon xp. Maybe its just the way the chip is set up?

No, definaltly Legion, it does make a difference.

it really does make a difference, especially with the onboard memory controller

Right now, w/ the lack of drivers let alone good drivers and applications that can run in a 64-bit environment, there isn't a whole lot of an advantage, because w/ out the drivers your performance is badly hurt.

But once good drivers and applications start turning up for WinXP64, it will be a BIG performance difference.

If you are using 32 bit programs ond 64 bit windows you will lose some performance compared to 32 bit windows, but if you use 64 bit version of the same programs, you will gain some performance.
I can give a stats if you are interested.

I know there is an OEM version of xp 64 that some may have.
Has there been any benchmarking done with the xp64 OS? Search came up nil......

BrandonV said:

I know there is an OEM version of xp 64 that some may have.
Has there been any benchmarking done with the xp64 OS? Search came up nil......

Click to expand...

I'm running XP64 ATM, any benchies you want me to post. Let me know and I'll get to it.

Here are some results:

Processor Pentium 4 660, Athlon 64 3800+

Test

Far Cry (FPS)
Win32 66,9 80,34
Win64 65,73 78,94

Half-Life2 (FPS)
Win32 96.26 126,3
Win64 92,34 123,4

WinRar (kb/s)
Win32 440 541
Win64 433 513

Blobby Dancer
Win32 (32 bit version) 45,65 46,55
Win64 (32 bit version) 46,14 46,78
Win64 (64 bit version) 60,34 59,79

POV-ray
Win32 (32 bit version) 103 94,32
Win64 (32 bit version) 104,5 94,11
Win64 (64 bit version) 84,28 117,74

mackica is the version of far cry you used the 64 bit version or the 32 bit?

far cry version is 32 bit, it's mentioned where are used 64 bit version of programs.

Thanks dude.

Nitro and Makica,
you both have the full version or the eval?

Neither yet, but will have full version in a few days.

Since both Intel and AMD have 64bit processors, I moved this to Gen CPUs from AMD.

In theory, a 64 bit CPU can process twice as many bits as a 32 bit CPU in a given time, everything else equal.
In practice, it gets extremely complicated. My 3000+ Athlon 64 gets 7.2Mkeys/sec in RC5-72 while my 2.4GHz P4 gets 3Mkeys/s in RC5-72; it's more than twice as fast. Therefore, it's equivalent to a 5.76GHz P4 - really impressive.
Hardware precision can also come into play. For instance, a program like Fear Factor would use a lot of 64 bit floating point operations in order to calculate some parameters during the CPU test portion. While a 64 bit CPU can do these operations in a clock cycle or two, a 32 bit CPU must either use 32 bits and toss a lot of accuracy or emulate a 64 bit CPU and suffer a major performace penalty as many 32 bit instructions must be executed to emulate a single 64 bit instruction.
I have to say that my Athlon 64 renders Fear Factor with higher quality than my Pentium 4. I could emulate 64 bits on the P4 and get the same accuracy, but then it can no longer keep up with time.

Of course, you do need a 64 bit kernel to really use a 64 bit CPU. But many 64 bit distributions can be downloaded for free, and my experience shows that Fedora Core 3 AMD64 is superior to Redhat Enterprise Linux 3.2.