64bit vs 32 bit

I have 9.2 running on a 2G athlon and am happy. However, the amd64 pricing looks good and I have an itch to build a new machine. I have suse 9.3 on pre-order and am debating the merits of going with amd64.

Is it worth it?

Are all the apps 64 bit?

Does Americas Army run on it?

Is it really faster?

Or should I wait another 6 months?


Anthony

I think it is worth it. My 3400+ Clawhammer will run Super Pi faster than my Pentium 4 3.0c. Both of those systems are XP Pro only.

There are many flavors of Athlon 64; three different sockets, many different processor cores, single channel and dual channel...Socket 754 is older, runs the memory in Single Channel, and now it is the 'budget' solution. Socket 939 is the newest and runs the memory in Dual Channel. If you go socket 754 look at the latest motherboard chipsets. It took a revision or two before Via or nVidia got them right.

You may want to wait a little bit for the revision E chips to come out, but yes I think now isnt a bad time to upgrade.

The nforce4 chipset is really impressive as far as features and performance goes, if you pair that up with a 90nanometer socket 939 processor and an nvidia graphics card you will have a very nice system.

However, a 2ghz thoroughbred or barton isnt too shabby either, so there probably isnt any urgent need for you to upgrade. Maybe you should hold off and upgrade when dual core is widespread.

Originally posted by Shatrat@Mar 17 2005, 10:44 PM
You may want to wait a little bit for the revision E chips to come out, but yes I think now isnt a bad time to upgrade.

The nforce4 chipset is really impressive as far as features and performance goes, if you pair that up with a 90nanometer socket 939 processor and an nvidia graphics card you will have a very nice system.

However, a 2ghz thoroughbred or barton isnt too shabby either, so there probably isnt any urgent need for you to upgrade. Maybe you should hold off and upgrade when dual core is widespread.*

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I have a 2G Barton now and am happy with it. I wonder if the amd64 3200+( 2G) is "faster"?

Also, are the apps there? or Do 32 bit apps run faster on the 64 bit platform?

I love my AMD64 machine. Definitely use a 939 chip processor, I'm using one of the 754s, before we knew they were adjusting the pins again.

There are enough apps in 64-bit that you can use just fine, and you can still run 32-bit applications too. There's a small speed increase between 32-bit programs in a 64-bit OS and 32-32, but not noticable. What you really notice is when you're comparing 32-32 with 64-64... THAT'S BLAZING.

~~ Andrew D.

My experience with x86-64 has been that Suse gave you everything you needed to run a great computer from the beginning. In general, the other apps rpms lagged 32-bit somewhat at first & you needed to compile from source. Now there are many of our "experts" using 64-bit such that the 64-bit apps are readily soon available after a new 32-bit app is out.

I have found that suse-apt mirrors are the place to look for the newest update patches.

Suse 32-bit zings; 64-bit Suse REALLY zings.

I like to think of it as driving down a crowded 4-lane interstate highway & suddenly it becomes 8 lanes both ways -- everything picks up speed.

Plus, Suse x86-64 works with all my hardware (except for that old microtek 6000 scanner that I tossed).

I second andrewd18, definitely go with a 939 chip processor -- it will be my next one.

Pay the price & get Suse 9.3 Pro -- you get both.

Have fun

Thanks all for the input. 939 it is..newegg here I come {8~ )

For your question about America's Army, it certainly can run on 64-bit because my bro's runs it everyday and his computer is an AMD64 3300+ (HP Pavillion a510n)

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