32bit and 64 bit confusion

Hi all, this is my first post on the forums. I used to do hardware support some years ago, so am not completely wet when it comes to desktop hardware.

My machine is a bit old now so I've decided to upgrade it.

I want to buy the following
Mother board
CPU
RAM
DVD Writer

I've been looking at cpu's and motherboards and have just got a headache.
I have windows7 pro 32bit so the machine that I build will have to run 32bit OS.

I quite fancied a Gigabyte MB with socket AM3
Model GA-MA770T-UD3P

My questions are
Do 64bit CPU's and motherboard combination run a 32bit OS or would I need a 32bit CPU and motherboard.
The supplier that I use has all products online and it is very unclear.

Thanks Guys

A 64-bit CPU and MoBo will run a 32-bit O/S just fine. They'll also run 64-bit stuff when you come to change O/S in the future. :good:

Hey Langers,
Thanks for the quick response, that was just the answer I was looking for so that I would have forward compatability when I get my hands on a 64bit version of the OS.

Thanks a lot.

64bit - 32bit

Hi again,
Once I'm up and running with the new parts and OS I intend to upgrade to a 64bit OS as soon as I get my hands on it. In your opinion, is there a noticable difference in performance between 32 and 64 bit?

Cheers

a 32-bit OS can handle 32 bits of data at a time, a 64 bit does 64 bits of data. Ao yes, there will be a slight performance increase. And anyway, 64-bit is becoming mainstream now so you might as well upgrade to it in the near future.

randelld said:

Hi again,
Once I'm up and running with the new parts and OS I intend to upgrade to a 64bit OS as soon as I get my hands on it. In your opinion, is there a noticable difference in performance between 32 and 64 bit?

Cheers

Click to expand...

Personally, no. I haven't noticed a difference between the two in my case. I primarily use my computer for gaming, photo editing, multimedia watching, and your general internet/office tasks. Photoshop CS4 64Bit is probably the only program that I use where I can tell there is a slight improvement, but nothing too great.

One of the big advantages of a 64 bit OS is that it can natively support 4GB+ of RAM.

Just a heads up, if you are replacing all those components you may run into issues booting up Windows, and/or you may need to re-activate.

randelld said:

Hi again,
Once I'm up and running with the new parts and OS I intend to upgrade to a 64bit OS as soon as I get my hands on it. In your opinion, is there a noticable difference in performance between 32 and 64 bit?

Cheers

Click to expand...

first off welcome to the forum. To address the os confusion, I have been running a 64 bit and a 32 bit os and I have not noticed a difference. I have heard that there are some problems with programs not being compatible with the 64 bit versions but they are few and far between. also, there will less and less over time. (since so many processors are going to be 64 bit
). I feel that the big difference is the hardware that you have. not so much what bit your os is running.

good luck with your decisions

64-23 bit

I have already ordered the following, it was a slightly blind decision on my part really, along with budget restrictions, just hope I made the right choice.

AMD Athlon II x4 630 2,8Ghz
Gigabyte PhenII x4/x3 socket AM3 DDR3 SATA PCIe
Crucial 4Gb 240-DIMM DDR3 PC3-10600 Non-ECC

I use my computer mainly for web design and graphics
Dreamweaver
Adobe Photoshop

What are your honest verdicts on this setup?

Thanks Guys

I noticed things like iTunes and MS Office programs opened quicker. But nothing extreme, you probably wouldn't even noticed the difference.

I'd say the 64 bit route is still better. Being able to double the data push is always a good thing. But you'll mostly see the need for that when your really in developing.

Depends on your requirements. 64-bit handles much more RAM than 32-bit, although it is not as used for gaming.

In general, 64-bit seems to be a bit snappier, especially with 4gb or more of ram. One of the biggest things I've noticed (Which doesn't totally apply in your case, but does give an example of the advantages) is that alt+tabbing out of fullscreen apps takes about 1.5 seconds to get to desktop, whereas with 32-bit, it takes significantly longer (between 25s-60s depending on the program) I believe I have a PC magazine around here somewhere with benchmarks confirming just this.