Opinions wanted: Windows 7 32-bit vs. 64-bit... what to do

[DrLove'sKuDang]

i am currently running win7 x86, and i have everything installed as i would want it. i know its not possible to upgrade to x64, meaning i would have to do another clean install. im just not sure that i want to do that.

would it be worth it to do so?


i have 4gb of ram right now, although i wouldnt mind upgrading at some point. according to my system, its only using 3.25 of 4gb.

i read that there are some downsides to 64bit, although im using all fairly new system parts all around, so i dont think i would have a driver issue. are there any other downsides to 64bit other than a possible lack of driver?


my main reason for wanting to upgrade is that calculation intensive programs like video encoding are supposed to be greatly improved by the move to 64bit. does anyone know for a fact or have first hand experience of this? i do tons of hd video encoding, so the performance improvement would be 90% of my reason for the jump.

[Dhsmokymcpot]

well if you want more ram than 4Gb then your going to have to jump to the 64-bit system. The 32-bit system won't recognize more than 4Gb of ram. Id say do it. When I get the money I'm going to upgrade from 32-bit vista to 7 64-bit.

[19dabeast85]

Actually 32 bit will not usually recognize much more than 3gb. If you have 4gb or more you have to jump to 64bit to reap the full benefits.

The issues with the 64bit is that there is still alot of hardware out there that doesn't have the 64bit drivers yet. You may run into incompatibility driver issues with 64bit OS. That being said, I just got a laptop with Win7 64bit and it runs great.

The main thing you need to check is go online to your hardware manufacturers pages (motherboard, graphics card, sounds card, etc) and make sure they all have 64bit drivers for your hardware. Download these before installing the new OS and save them on a flash drive. After installing 64bit you'll need to get these drivers installed ASAP. There may be an option to load the driver during the actual OS install but I'm not sure, search the web a bit and you should find info on that.

I say go for it. Worse case scenario is you end up going back to your current OS with a clean install.

[foamypirate]

64bit is nice. That's what I run on my desktop. Plays very nicely with my 8GB of ram.

[Hondateck2010]

I was running windows 7 32 for a while but then I wanted to use all the memory I have (4GB) so I went for 64bit. it funny cause I have more issues now then what I did with the 32 bit. nothing old installed. Might be going back to 32bit till I get 8Gb and see if it works better

[wed3k]

im still on XP, why upgrade?

[C91BLX7]

im still on XP, why upgrade?

it doesnt look as cool

[Tippey764]

64 bit

There is no reason to be running 32 bit anymore unless you have to. I've been running 64 bit since vista im currently running windows 7 home premium 64 bit. Everything works great.

[cp[mike]]

64 bit

There is no reason to be running 32 bit anymore unless you have to. I've been running 64 bit since vista im currently running windows 7 home premium 64 bit. Everything works great.

youre forgetting the 1 major reason to continue running 32bit: because they havent made any good 64bit OSes yet.

[DrLove'sKuDang]

well, im on win7 x64 right now... and FUCK IT!!!!!

ive never had so many little issues installing programs before. and on top of that, i can get tmpgenc to recognize any mkv files. what a huge waste of time this was. and nothing is faster. i even ran some benchmark programs, and my results were lower with 64bit.


next time i post on this site, i will be back, running strong on win7 x86.

[19dabeast85]

well, im on win7 x64 right now... and FUCK IT!!!!!

ive never had so many little issues installing programs before. and on top of that, i can get tmpgenc to recognize any mkv files. what a huge waste of time this was. and nothing is faster. i even ran some benchmark programs, and my results were lower with 64bit.


next time i post on this site, i will be back, running strong on win7 x86.

Yep, it's because you don't have all of the drivers/software in 64bit versions. Also those playing any games are out of luck, not many are 64bit compatible. For my work computer with no need for crazy software though it's working great! Windows8 is coming soon and it'll be 128bit so I'm thinking 64bit technology will sorta get skipped over like Vista did.

[DrLove'sKuDang]

If 64bit got skipped like it seems to have, how do they expect to bring 128? Kinda stupid to bring out something new when there are compatibilty issues with what's already here.

[Tippey764]

youre forgetting the 1 major reason to continue running 32bit: because they havent made any good 64bit OSes yet.

Why dont you think windows 7 64 bit is good? All of my programs work fine and i could find all the drivers i needed. Im happy with it

[19dabeast85]

Why dont you think windows 7 64 bit is good? All of my programs work fine and i could find all the drivers i needed. Im happy with it

Yeah, I've built/worked on so many custom PC's that it's second nature to go look up a driver, uninstall the one that doesn't work and install the proper one for every single different piece of hardware. Many people don't even know enough to realize this can be done. So far I haven't had an incompatibility issues with Win7 64bit, seems to be a very stable and quick OS. It will run faster than Vista on any "vista compatible" computer and likely outrun XP on most machines. Just make sure you have the c: space for an 12gb OS, Win7 likes alot of room but hard drives are so cheap and large these days 12gb is nothing.

[foamypirate]

Yep, it's because you don't have all of the drivers/software in 64bit versions. Also those playing any games are out of luck, not many are 64bit compatible. For my work computer with no need for crazy software though it's working great! Windows8 is coming soon and it'll be 128bit so I'm thinking 64bit technology will sorta get skipped over like Vista did.

All of my games run fine on 64-bit?