32-bit or 64-bit?

[janzib]

Hy,

Does the 64-bit version depend only on the procesor or also on ram?

Thanks for answering.
janzib

[microchip8]

no 64-bit capable processor = not possible to run 64-bit OS

RAM has nothing to do with it

[janzib]

I have an intel core 2 quad procesor. What do you suggest? 32-bit or 64-bit?

[fbsduser]

Originally Posted by janzib

I have an intel core 2 quad procesor. What do you suggest? 32-bit or 64-bit?

64 bits, the Core2Duo and Core2Quad are x64.

[stakanov]

LOL, this depends on the type of processor and of the RAM.

Although this seems to be in contrast with the prior posting of our colleague:

you have to distinguish to problems when deciding over 32 or 64 bit version. The "feasibility" and the "sense".

It is often more a problem of "sense" then of technical feasibility.

Nearly all modern processors are 64 bit. Intel processors Core2Duo are to my knowledge all 64 bit ready.

Therefore it is "feasible" to install the system 64 bit. You where right however to ask about the RAM. The RAM of your system will influence the decision about the fact if what is "feasible" would also be "sensed".
To make it short:
if your system has below 2 GB of RAM it is useful (in my experience) to stick to 32 bit.
The system otherwise risk to be sluggish and to appear overloaded, especially when you have below 2 GB. Technically nearly the same software for 64 and 32 bit are now available and the quality of both is equivalent.

If your system has 3 GB I personally would advise 64 bit already because I feel the machines I installed run somehow more "solid" if a lot of applications are running parallel on that kind of machine. But it may be a "subjective bias".

When does it come to "sensed" is in the moment you run a system with more than 4 GB. In this case the 32 bit system cannot address physically the RAM available. A normal kernel 32 bit would therefor "see" only 3 GB for programs and 1 GB for the system even if you have 6 GB installed.

Linux did overcome partially the limitation with the PAE kernel (with which it is able to address more then the usual 4 GB max) but after the 4 GB it is advisable to switch to 64 bit, also because there is more and more software available that makes full use of multiprocessing and available RAM.

You will want to use 64 bit, particularly if you run VirtualBox or if you do Video editing and Photo editing. The bigger the files you are using the more advantage you get out of your 64 bit system.

Another software with which you will want to employ a system with 64 for bit is statistical software, especially if "monoliticaly" programmed. STATA would be such a software. IF you owe proudly a multiprocessor, 64 bit version STATA your own, you will be able to take full advantage of 64 bit either in terms of speed as in terms of available RAM for statistical calculations to be attributed, without making the system instable.

[janzib]

thank you for the answers!! Great help.

Best regards,
janzib

[TaraIkeda]

Truth be told there isnt much difference between 32bit and 64bit, there is not a lot to gain by using 64bit but there isnt much to loose either.
But in any case there is little difference between the two, you wont see much of a difference if you dont use over 3GB of RAM.
For the 32bit version there is a 3GB RAM limit, the 32bit version wont work with over 3GB of RAM.
64bit doesnt have this limit, but overall even the 32bit version will work with your processor/system.

[microchip8]

Originally Posted by stakanov

if your system has below 2 GB of RAM it is useful (in my experience) to stick to 32 bit.
The system otherwise risk to be sluggish and to appear overloaded, especially when you have below 2 GB.
.

What? did you just made this up. How will the system become sluggish/overloaded if you have less than 2 GB RAM and install a 64-bit OS? You're talking complete nonsense here. I guess all my 64-bit systems with only 1.5 GB RAM are really sluggish/overloaded yet I haven't experienced this at all O.o

64-bit makes a lot of sense for specific applications, whether you have less than 2 GB or not, it doesn't matter. Multimedia, especially encoding audio or video which don't take much RAM anyway when encoding, will see a boost in speed. A small fact, x264 is ~15% faster on 64-bit systems regardless of the amount of RAM you have. 64-bit also exposes some registers that are only possible in a 64-bit wide CPU and again here some applications can take advantage of this, as is the case with x264

[stakanov]

Originally Posted by microchip8

What? did you just made this up. How will the system become sluggish/overloaded if you have less than 2 GB RAM and install a 64-bit OS? You're talking complete nonsense here. I guess all my 64-bit systems with only 1.5 GB RAM are really sluggish/overloaded yet I haven't experienced this at all O.o

Tssssss. Why do people take everything personal and are so aggressive in their expression.
As you may have noticed I did not contradict what you said about the CPU architecture and substantially you say the same as me when it comes to the major advantages (multimedia, stat packages and video editing). So?

There is not use to express yourself so aggressively as to write "you are talking complete nonsense here".
You may have valuable points but then.....what impact do you hope to achieve in the overall climate of the forum if you express yourself like this?
I said: in MY experience. So you may well write that your experience is different.
You have valuable points such as: specific applications, your own experience, etc.

Btw, having said this, the problems of responsiveness of the system might well be also a different compatibility with chip-sets and system? The one(s) I perceived a difference with ,and where 32 bits were, IMHO, better suited, was a X2 64 AMD with 1 GB DDR and softraid. The system was low on resources with 64 bit (11.1, KDE4) with picture editing and reproduction of large videos (and swapping). Swapping resulted annoying, causing sound interrupts with a skysat dvbs card. Before, the same system ran well with the 32 bit version.
The whole problem was much more acceptable with "zypper remove *beagle*" as one would have expected, but still it swapped.
It runs now like a dream with 8 GB RAM under 64 bit (that we had luckily at the price of 2 GB RAM, so why not? ) and is all another story.
By thinking of it: maybe the "RAM limit" where it begins to be convenient to stay 32 bit is 1 GB. Because actually the system in idle swapped 500 MB (so probably it would have run well with 500 MB more - which is what you do experience, right?).