Building New PC - 64 Bit Or Not ?

[WeaponX 0]

Hi, I will be (hopefully) building a new PC soon. I will most likely go with an AMD chipset. Is it recommended to go with the 64 bit CPU chpset or should I stay with the 32 bit ones (Athlon XP)? This will be my first time building a PC, but I'm 100% sure I can do this without any problems. I will be gathering my parts soon but just want to know if I should stay with 32 bit or not.My main concern is Windows Vista. I heard so many things about it that I'm not even sure if it really exists From what I heard, it will be coming out 2006 and will have like 5 different versions of it. I didn't read too much after that. Will it have 32 bit and 64 bit versions? If I do plan to get the 64 bit chip, will it be able to run 32 bit applications (backward compatible)?Thanks.

[Darren1405241470 0]

Hi, I will be (hopefully) building a new PC soon.  I will most likely go with an AMD chipset.  Is it recommended to go with the 64 bit CPU chpset or should I stay with the 32 bit ones (Athlon XP)?  This will be my first time building a PC, but I'm 100% sure I can do this without any problems.  I will be gathering my parts soon but just want to know if I should stay with 32 bit or not.

 

My main concern is Windows Vista.  I heard so many things about it that I'm not even sure if it really exists    From what I heard, it will be coming out 2006 and will have like 5 different versions of it.  I didn't read too much after that.  Will it have 32 bit and 64 bit versions?  If I do plan to get the 64 bit chip, will it be able to run 32 bit applications (backward compatible)?

 

Thanks.

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I am also in the process of building a new pc, and i personally will go with a amd 64 (about 4000+ i think). It is backwards compatible with 32bit programs, OS's etc and i'm sure that the new windows will come in a 64 bit version (though i personally suggest linux).

[vizskywalker 0]

Vista, although suffering minor setbacks, is scheduled for realeas in the first half of 2006. It is a 64 bit OS. The AMD 64 bit chipset is backwards compatible with 32 bit processors because it is mostly simply a zero extended processor to handle 64 bit values, not many new 64 bit instructions (unlike the Intel, at least, unless you get a new make which has compatibility for the new intel instructions). Go with a 64bit chip, even if you can't reap the benefits now, in two years, when XP is obsolete, you will not need to buy another new processor.~Viz

[Jguy101 0]

Definately 64. I have an AMD Athlon 64 1800+ in my PC, and it runs very well with Windows XP.

[Retaining 0]

When I upgrade in the future (meaning maybe 6 months-year), I will definitely go with an Athlon 64. Not only are they faster now (due to higher clock speeds and native 64-bit arithmetic support), but they will be compatible with whatever comes next in the way of 64-bit operating systems and other technology. Also, they are becoming very affordable now that they have been around for a while.

[curare 0]

Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts. This is an interesting topic and I would like to add my 2 posting point of thoughts to it.

 

I would go for the AMD 64 chipset as well, after reading tons of reviews.

 

WeaponX, I would not worry too much about Vista. It will take presumably more than 6 months until a stable version is available. Service pack 1 should be there before you install it. But, other than that, I am not sure if you'll want Vista on your machine at all. This OS has built in many restrictions, unnecessary alerts, and what not. It's bloated in a way you'd think M$ is in the HD making business in the first place and not in writing SW. I can tell, because I have a beta version installed here. And while this is not the final product, you get an idea where it's headed. Forget it! It is not even tasteful anymore. It's sitting on my HD but I rarely call it up because I simply detest an OS which tells me what file to open and what not (for example mp3 files). Do you want such an OS? I don't

 

I installed ubuntu 5.10 here as well on the same machine, and it is so amazing, so effective and so efficient without putting any unnecessary clutter on either your desktop or your HD. Plus it is of course very stable.

 

curare

[smyke 0]

well... for now... you won't get the speed difference you will get once Windows Wista is launched and 64 bits applications are developed !In 2 years, when we all should take the next step to Windows Vista, the fact that you will own a 64 bit optimised processor will count very very much ! And yes... a 64 bit processor is backwards compatible !And i have to say, that in my point of view you've made a very good choice, AMD processors beeing my favorites !Go and grab it now !

[Killer008r 0]

since I have gotten the amd 64 3200+ I have never wanted to go back to a 32 bit processor. 64 Works SO SO much better than a 32bit, It is really beautiful. I would have to say go with the 64 like everyone else.

[curare 0]

since I have gotten the amd 64 3200+ I have never wanted to go back to a 32 bit processor. 64 Works SO SO much better than a 32bit, It is really beautiful. I would have to say go with the 64 like everyone else.

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On what OS?

 

curare

[Killer008r 0]

I use Bouth Windows XP 64 bit (Extremely Buggy), and Linspire 5.0

[kam1405241509 0]

Vista, although suffering minor setbacks, is scheduled for realeas in the first half of 2006.  It is a 64 bit OS.  The AMD 64 bit chipset is backwards compatible with 32 bit processors because it is mostly simply a zero extended processor to handle 64 bit values, not many new 64 bit instructions (unlike the Intel, at least, unless you get a new make which has compatibility for the new intel instructions).  Go with a 64bit chip, even if you can't reap the benefits now, in two years, when XP is obsolete, you will not need to buy another new processor.

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The original roadmap stated Vista would be released to RTM in June & public launch in Oct 2006 .. it was never H1 that was just the later betas/RCs (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/). Vista betas are getting delayed & now an MS exec stated the final's been delayed too(http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/).

They're going to release as both 32-bit and 64-bit .. it'd be pretty dumb to sideline the majority of users (even if their experience would be pretty lame without serious hardware!).

 

Yes the IA64 is a serious number of changes, but it's basically dead thanks to much higher prices & much poorer IA32 performance!

 

Intel's other 64-bit CPU architecture is (now*) an exact copy of of AMD64 .. because MS said they will not support two versions of x86-64 CPUs just because Intel didn't like the fact that they didn't invent it & because they wanted to cheat and use their dominance/power rather than compete fairly (AMD filed a recent lawsuit claiming unfair lack of competition from intel in the supply chain)!

 

* Intel originally released an incomplete version of AMD64 (of course they called it an Intel acronym) ... Intel had less not more x86-64 intructions initially!

 

Now, although x86-64 is a simpler change than IA64 (obviously .. as it's a bunch of extra instructions not a whole new ISA), it's not simply a matter of widening the eight GPRs etc (64-bit addresses to be able to address >4GB's without a broken Xeon memory bus extension). AMD doubled the eight GPRs & eight SIMD (SSE/2/3) registers, and the rest is const (eight x87 FPRs & the extra 120 hidden/internal registers for register renaming.

 

Finally, AMD's K8 ISA isn't simply just 64-bit-ness. They also took the leap to HyperTransport CPU&PCIe interconnects ... and the integrated memory controller which helped scalability without losing/sharing performance .. these two only really come into their own at the high end though (2/4-way SLI, massive peripheral bandwidth etc for the former ... and SMP/ccNUMA for the latter).

[kam1405241509 0]

WeaponX, I would not worry too much about Vista. It will take presumably more than 6 months until a stable version is available. Service pack 1 should be there before you install it. But, other than that, I am not sure if you'll want Vista on your machine at all. This OS has built in many restrictions, unnecessary alerts, and what not. It's bloated in a way you'd think M$ is in the HD making business in the first place and not in writing SW. I can tell, because I have a beta version installed here. And while this is not the final product, you get an idea where it's headed. Forget it! It is not even tasteful anymore. It's sitting on my HD but I rarely call it up because I simply detest an OS which tells me what file to open and what not (for example mp3 files). Do you want such an OS? I don't

 

I installed ubuntu 5.10 here as well on the same machine, and it is so amazing, so effective and so efficient without putting any unnecessary clutter on either your desktop or your HD. Plus it is of course very stable.

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Vista brings with it a GPU accelerated GUI (basically since OSX had Aqua .. Linux is also getting equivalent setups but it'll probably be minimalistic/efficient :-)). Eventually it'll bring with it the SQL-server-lite-enabled WinFS ... not sure I'd want a database running 24/7 behind the scenes, unless it doesn't do much beyond updates & tree restructuring etc until it is needed to find something.

 

Current realistic specs are bidirectionalPCIeX16/GPU/256MB, 2CPU(it's more threaded internally)/2GB, SATA/NCQ ... and of course an HDCP HD-LCD to view BRDs/HDTV/etc (legal) content!

 

I agree, but it depends on the user. I don't want my OS doing much since for me it's just there to manage/run all my apps efficiently. For a laptop, especially, wrt one that's trying to save power, running a DB on a 2nd CPU is excessively wasteful!

 

I too don't want my OS dictating what I can & cannot view/execute .. I will certainly not have my main PC running any protected content .. There are cracked hardware out already wrt HDCP to DVI, but the standard allows for the blocking of specific peripherals & they can change the encryption codes etc at any time. I'm sure that eventually there will be work arounds .. or people will just get all their content from non-legit sources online instead .. in the same way that many people avoid iTunes files simply because they do not want any restrictions, so they burn their CDs & compress to an open format!

 

Overall I think there's very little benefit for far too much cost with Vista. I'd use OSX if I wanted something pretty & with a database (and secureness), or Linux if I'd want something efficient that just works & does the job (and can look very nice if setup well etc .. without being inefficient). And I still really like W2K more than XP because it works as well without any of the fluff! With HW virtualisation (esp in v2) there will be less/no reasons to run Windows as a main OS just so as to run a particular app(s) .. so then people will chose their main OS purely based on the features they need (or think they need).

 

Finally, I think MS's logic is that they rarely produce a completely rearchitected OS (a lot of the stacks in Vista are completely rewritten or new), so they won't get a chance in the near future of taking advantage of all the new hardware changes that have/are taking place (multicore, 64-bit memory space, PCIe graphics, SATA-NCQ, etc), so they may as well focus this OS on the very latest or near-future (DDR3) hardware, and wait for the majority of users to catch up. Eventually all this will be common/cheap (even multicores on laptops now exists), and hopefully the continued focus on lowering power by intel (and also AMD to a lesser extent) may have some decent results soon :-). This is all conjecture/guesswork though until the final final build is released.

[kam1405241509 0]

I use Bouth Windows XP 64 bit (Extremely Buggy), and Linspire 5.0

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I think the main problem with x64 is that many hardware makers haven't bothered to release 64-bit drivers at all, or at best the drivers are not very stable. I don't think the OS itself is to blame. Also I don't think MS takes it that seriously & knows full well that this problem is due to vendors' resources being focused on Vista instead which will have a longer lifespan (and therefore worth the effort/time/money spent on developing Vista specific 64-bit drivers instead). Again though I don't know anything for sure since I haven't seen the internals!

[kam1405241509 0]

On what OS?

 

curare

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The 64-bit Far Cry patch is the only damn good commercial homeuser demonstration of what can really be done given 64-bit processing & memory addressing. The draw-distance can increase (scene can be drawn out further into the distance), more objects can appear onscreen simultaneously, higher resolution textures (this makes a big difference & I think most games developers say they are going down this route soon .. ie in 2006). Wrt games/graphics I really like the look of HDR & some of the newer shader ideas, but that's going slightly off topic ;-).

[Killer008r 0]

My quoting still isnt working >: ([Kam] "The 64-bit Far Cry patch is the only damn good commercial homeuser demonstration of what can really be done given 64-bit processing & memory addressing. The draw-distance can increase (scene can be drawn out further into the distance), more objects can appear onscreen simultaneously, higher resolution textures (this makes a big difference & I think most games developers say they are going down this route soon .. ie in 2006). Wrt games/graphics I really like the look of HDR & some of the newer shader ideas, but that's going slightly off topic ;-)."I think the new HL2 demo (Lost Coast) is the best out there. Its full can only be handled by a 64 bit processor. When it's at that, the HD lighting, and the scenery of the game becomes beautiful like no one would believe. If you see it at the highest it's highest quality, You would cry because you wouldn't have thought anything could look or seem so realistic.