vista 32 or 64bit for 2gb ram?

[keef247]

quadcore 2.4ghz 8mb cache...
ati 3870pcs (xt spec card 2400/800mhz)
2x320gb 8mb cache 7200rpm WD hdd's... (soon to be reinstalled on a 500gb 16mb cache)
abit ip35-pro
crucial ballistix 2x1gb pc8500...
tagan 500w dualengine

thats my spec so will my new rig run better in 32bit with 2gb ram over 64bit with 2gb?
going be majorly multitasking so want to know whats best before it arrives tomorrow...
cheers

[Splash]

Are you going to be upgrading to 4Gb or more in the lifetime of the OS? If not then I guess 32 bit would be fine. There's nothing to lose (barring 16 bit installers and only being allowed signed drivers) by going 64 bit to be honest, and that's where I'd be looking.

[redddraggon]

I went 64bit for 2GB of RAM, not much longer after I upgraded to 4GB, in my case 32bit would have been a mistake. I've not had a problem with 64-bit.

[Splash]

So yes - essentially unless you have a compelling reason to buy 32bit (such as those mentioned above) go for x64

[Agent]

Unless you have a reason not to use 64bit, use it.

[keef247]

butttt.... on 2GB ram NOT mentioning 4GB for a minute? yay or nay on preformance hits vs 32bit?
is 2gb the equivalent of say 3gb preformance on a xp 32bit machine? or vista 32?
and yer maybe in a few months i'll use 4gb... but I don't want to get 4gb unless i really need it so maybe 32bit would be better preformance wise?

[redddraggon]

Just get 64bit, no need to get 32bit

[Splash]

I don't see how it would be frugal or wise to buy 32 bit purely because you only have 2Gb of RAM (which seems to be the case based on what you're saying). x64 will work just as happily on 2Gb. Add in the fact that you're to be "majorly multitasking" and it just makes no sense NOT to go x64 with a view to upgrading to more RAM in future.

As for your question as to "the equivalent" I'm afraid you've lost me.

If you want a reason to buy another 2Gb then a combination of the extra performance you'll get and the fact that it really is cheap as chips should help. Leave it too long and the price could go back up.

[undergroove]

will my new rig run better in 32bit with 2gb ram over 64bit with 2gb?

Just stick x64 on and be done with it I say.

I moved to 64 a few weeks ago with "only" 2gb of RAM, with the intention of putting another 2 in or replacing with 2x2 instead. Would have done it already by now but the board I've got sucks majorly when using (even decent quality DDR2) 4gb so haven't.

As to how it'll perform day-to-day, I've not noticed any real difference between 32 and 64, other than the native 64bit version of 7-Zip seems a fair bit quicker and that Directory Opus is quicker than Explorer for file copying but that it also crashes a bit as well. Windows itself feels a little snappier too. Games all work fine so far as well, with all my STEAM stuff working and Crysis playing fine from 64bit version.

I'd say your rig would run rather well.

[keef247]

hmmm i'm still not sure... someone said this which makes me huff... considering I'm definately going to be using nero vision/nero products alot for my backups...

i would recommend the 32bit....... seeing upon clean boot, Vista takes up 1.5GB of memory (i know difference between free RAM and superfetched, im talking about memory usage) and when i do something, Vista will have to shift stuff out of RAM to make way for my programmes, now im fine with that, but when the programme exits, and it sits less than 1GB, it becomes very unpleasant experience.

im talking from experience, when i make ISO using Nero 7.8.5 (or some version, not v8 ) it will slowly take up ALL 4GB of my RAM, at about 70% point the system will become unusable. only after Nero has finished, and after 5min for Vista to re-cache the files back into RAM, taking RAM usage back up 1GB point, it became smooth.

however, i didn't have this problem with 32bit Vista, its memory usage were around 800MB, only less than 500MB made it unusable.

NB: i define unusable as firefox doesn't come up within 5 seconds. even when Video encoding, it comes up within 2s.

[Splash]

That's... an interesting quote. Interesting given that I find I have roughly the same performance when burning an image in Nero under both 32 and 64 bit. Actually I guess that the performance is a little better under 64 bit as I can play WoW and surf the internet at the same time. And this is on almost exactly the same hardware. 32 bit is installed on a Spinpoint disk, 64 bit on an HGST disk but other than that it's the same machine. I'm not 100% certain as to the exact version of Nero I have installed, and I'm at work now so I can't confirm I'm afraid but it's 7.something, same installed under both instances of Vista.

I've got to admit that I'm a little intrigued - you seem rather determined that you'll go with 32 bit. That being the case I suspect that you'll buy into 32bit (if you haven't already) but something you should consider is that once you install 32 bit you can't just upgrade to 64 bit: you must backup, format and install from scratch so if you change your mind not only have you wasted cash on a 32 bit license (probably an OEM, so you won't even be able to transfer to another machine if you've activated) but you're in for the faff of transferring all your data when you decide (and I guarante that it will be when rather than if) that as memory is so cheap you might as well grab another couple of Gb, and then you need x64.

Apologies if I've misread your intentions, but I've re-read this thread a few times now and you seem determined to find a reason to go 32 bit where none exists.

[redddraggon]

64bit was fine when I only had 2GB of RAM. Who ever said they had problems must have had a dodgy setup.

[this_is_gav]

Just sounds like Nero leaking memory to be honest. 64-bit will allow a single process to address more than 2GB while 32-bit limits any process to 2GB, so if that leak got to the 2GB mark there was nothing to stop it heading north on x64..

The only reason to consider more RAM in x64 over x86 is that x64 runs WOW64 (essentially an emulation layer) for x86 processes. It's not really worth considering more RAM over x86 for, but you might notice a difference if you used RAM-intensive programs side-by-side on 2 otherwise identical machines. Given that they're giving RAM away at the moment, it might not be a bad choice to consider 4GB or even 8GB, as there'll be a point when it'll come in handy.

Frankly 1GB is enough in Vista x86 once it's been given a couple of weeks to settle down and worked out how you go about your day. I've run Vista x86 on a slow 512MB laptop (only missing Aero) and it was no worse than on the same laptop with XP. I was doing a dummy run to see how much of our software had issues with Vista.

[Dreaming]

That's... an interesting quote. Interesting given that I find I have roughly the same performance when burning an image in Nero under both 32 and 64 bit. Actually I guess that the performance is a little better under 64 bit as I can play WoW and surf the internet at the same time. And this is on almost exactly the same hardware. 32 bit is installed on a Spinpoint disk, 64 bit on an HGST disk but other than that it's the same machine. I'm not 100% certain as to the exact version of Nero I have installed, and I'm at work now so I can't confirm I'm afraid but it's 7.something, same installed under both instances of Vista.

I've got to admit that I'm a little intrigued - you seem rather determined that you'll go with 32 bit. That being the case I suspect that you'll buy into 32bit (if you haven't already) but something you should consider is that once you install 32 bit you can't just upgrade to 64 bit: you must backup, format and install from scratch so if you change your mind not only have you wasted cash on a 32 bit license (probably an OEM, so you won't even be able to transfer to another machine if you've activated) but you're in for the faff of transferring all your data when you decide (and I guarante that it will be when rather than if) that as memory is so cheap you might as well grab another couple of Gb, and then you need x64.

Apologies if I've misread your intentions, but I've re-read this thread a few times now and you seem determined to find a reason to go 32 bit where none exists.

Just for the record OEM and retail licences don't care whether they're 32bit or 64bit, it's solely the install media. It's fairly straightforward to get hold of the other version.

Also to the op, 64bit has about 10% better performance on average measured in benchmarks, it does feel marginally faster. The quote about someone struggling to do anything with it was either a bug or he's installed norton AV suite or something massive like that. My PC is 64 bit, currently using 1.22gb of RAM, but that's with firefox, steam, outlook, F@H, WMDC, and a few other bits running concurrently. That's also without configuring any services because I just haven't had time, so I've got loads of things running I don't actually want (sidebar.exe 5mb ram, even though it's not there!).

[Splash]

Just for the record OEM and retail licences don't care whether they're 32bit or 64bit, it's solely the install media. It's fairly straightforward to get hold of the other version.

It's still going to cost him more money than he necessarily needs to spend. He hasn't as yet come up with a compelling reason (and I appreciate that there are some) to install x86 over x64, but still seems to want to use x86. I'm just trying to save him some cash in the long term.

[keef247]

no i'm just scared i'm going to get a preformance hit with 64bit and need 4gb:\ whereas 2gb with 32bit i thought would be less hungry on the resources...