xp with i3 processor

[CoffeeFiend]

As you can see with 2GB, x86 is first in most test

If you go out of your way to memory starve a machine it doesn't perform well (that's always been the case since the introduction of virtual memory), that's all you proven, not that code performs any better on x86 -- it clearly doesn't. The only place it really loses significantly is the * Mark Vantage series which use a lot of memory (so it's hardly an indication of anything anyway, unless you plan on using a lot of memory-hungry apps on a machine with little RAM) as it does a lot of multitasking (lots of apps running at once).

The x64 OS performs all-around better, except in the one scenario where you go out of your way to make a nice modern machine and purposely pair it with too little RAM to then run memory-hungry apps, then any OS with a lighter "footprint" wins. Most of us who use lots of memory-hungry apps just get enough RAM in the first place so everything runs comfortably instead.

[allen2]

So because you want to run an x64 OS you need twice more ram. Doesn't that bother you ?

[Kelsenellenelvian]

Hmmm 2x or more CPU power needs 2x or more ram? Seems fine to me...

P.S. I ran 64 on 2 gigs ram for quite some time and was fine.

Win7 DOES handle 4gigs like the other 32 bit predeccesors. It simply doesn't recognize or utilize more than 3.25-3.75 gigs.

There where disproved rumors awhile ago that you could MAKE it use 4+ gigs but the were, as i said, disproven.

Edited May 19, 2010 by Kelsenellenelvian

[allen2]

If you were getting twice perf with x64 Os, it would be great but i never saw a real world application (i voluntary took out of the contest the link provided by Coffeefiends as it is a comparison between CS4 and CS5 on a MAC OSX leopard) performing twice faster in its x64 version.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

And you likely will not.

BUT you do get many more applications running functionaly at the same time without choking your system down.

Now with 64bit and 6 gigs of ram I can run several intensive thing at once, wheras before I could only run 3 or 3 things at the same time.

I am taking like running a couple of vmware os's, photoshop, 7zipping a 800 meg 9000 file folder and surfing the net while watching a movie.

NOW I can do that.

Before I could run 1 vm os and browse and say watch a movie and the movie would stutter abit.

I was a long term hater of 64bit and the newer os'es. But honeslty? I LOVE the extra productivity.

[allen2]

You're mixing the increase of memory and the 64 bit OS change.

I'm just saying that with the same amount of memory (say 3GB), Microsoft X86 and X64 OS will perform the same or the x86 will be a little better.

An interesting test would be :

- install win7 x86 and x64 on two hard drives (same make/model)

- then on each one create 2 ram drives with the MS native driver.

- then copy a big file or/and multiple small files between the ram drives.

If MS developers optimized their code, you should gain at least 33% with the 64bit win7 but i am not sure of the results.

[CoffeeFiend]

So because you want to run an x64 OS you need twice more ram. Doesn't that bother you ?

It doesn't force me to use twice as much RAM in any way.

2GB just isn't enough for what I do e.g. I've taken Photoshop memory consumption over 4GB by itself with large files, and that's one app alone -- doing this with the x86 version (the only thing you can on a x86 OS) is painfully slow (LOTS of disk I/O -- way less than half the speed). SolidWorks also crawls with 2GB (even on a x86 machine). It would also limit my ability to run VMs or multitask. And even if you exclude those particular apps, some of my apps wouldn't work quite as smoothly on a x86 system with 2GB. So do I mind the extra 300MB of overhead of the x64 version of Windows 7 (300MB being worth under $10 at current prices taxes in) which runs everything significantly faster (especially Photoshop which I use quite a lot, doubly so when multitasking a lot i.e. always)?

Am I supposed to want to save $10 worth of memory usage and prefer having pretty much everything run ~10% slower, and some tasks WAY slower? Or perhaps should I want to save a few bucks by not going dual core, also making things slower in the process? I don't get the reasoning behind it. $10 for a nice performance boost is nothing. There's ~$300 PCs with more than 2GB, it's not 2005 anymore.

And again, regardless of all this, I still wouldn't get 2GB on a modern system anyway (that's what I had in my 2GHz-ish PCs running XP years ago).

Sounds like your main beef isn't against x64 (or it's against it but based solely on a scenario where you go out of your way to memory starve it) but against newer software using more RAM (and needing better hardware than several years ago), in which case you can probably save more by staying with XP which has a even lower memory footprint. Right now what you're doing (as some kind of basis to bash x64) is exactly like saying XP is faster than Win7, because XP will run some memory-hungry app faster than Win7 with 512MB of RAM or whatever.

[Tripredacus]

The CPU itself isn't really where you want to focus on whether or not it is XP compatible. You want to see if the motherboard you have, or want to use, is compatible with XP, ie there are XP drivers available for it on the manufacturer's website. As an example. XP is supported on all Intel Desktop and Workstation boards currently available that support an i3 processor.

I don't completly agree with you: the itanium isn't supported by XP x86.

Also if you install win 3.11 on dual core or better you won't get all the benefits of the dual core architecture.

Ok then, find me a motherboard that uses an Itanium CPU that has XP support...

Here it is : a HP Zx2000 http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=fr&prodNameId=82076&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=82074&swEnvOID=1026&taskId=135&swLang=13

And as for the price you can find one there : http://cgi.ebay.fr/HP-ZX2000-Itanium-2-900MHz-4GB-36GB-DVD-A7844-84002-/300333964940?cmd=ViewItem&pt=COMP_EN_Workstations&hash=item45ed4c9e8c

It isn't exactly cheap but some designers or modelers might need this kind of power (instead of buying silicon graphic workstations).

Right well you see there it says XP 64bit in that webpage, but you spoke of XP x86...

Anyways about previous post (it was on page 2 so I couldn't use multiquote) there is no real point to using a 64bit OS and not use more than 4GB RAM. Yes it is going to be next to (if not) impossible to properly score the benefits of a properly used 64bit system against a 32bit system. So to say "you will not see any real difference" I beg to differ when I think about how much better our servers are now that they have minimum 16GB RAM in them.

[allen2]

The thing is simple, i hate poorly optimized applications and photoshop is a good example:

Althought it is certainly one the best photo editing software out there, i think adobe dev did a very bad work (speed/perf/memory) on it. Some opensource tools are sometimes faster (on the same operation) but sometimes a lot less easy to use. For example, and old photoshop ( i don't remember the version) wouldn't run without a pagefile without even loading a picture!!!

I'm pretty sure that you have a very good (hardware) computer, but there are people out there who would buy a pc and keep it 10 years without upgrading it.

What is good in a new version of an application if it doesn't improve in terms of functionality/speed/performance ?

[Tripredacus]

You also have to consider things from the other side. A company that makes a new product needs to make it available for use amongst all their prospective buyers. I am certain that Adobe could get away with forcing a hardware or software requirement but then you can bet there will be outrage because of it. Or maybe you think they would create two versions, one that goes along the regular path they are doing now, and then make a 64bit optimized version. How much more expensive do you think the 64bit version would be? How many people do you think would pay for that version? Do you think Adobe would make enough money on the 64bit version to make up for all the labor costs used up to create it? How about the advertising costs?

Yes it would make sense to just get with the program and go 64bit, but the whole world does not operate like the power users and enthusiasts do. It just wouldn't work out the way you are thinking.

[allen2]

If you go this way, i'll say how open source developers are paid ?

Not everything revolve around money in this world.

[Tripredacus]

If you go this way, i'll say how open source developers are paid ?

Not everything revolve around money in this world.

I was using your own example, Adobe with Photoshop etc, not open source. Open Source is totally different of course.

However a middle ground may be what Microsoft is doing with Office 2010, that is they provide the 64bit version of the product with the 32bit version. Of course, Microsoft gets to slightly dictate terms about their platform, as previously noted there will be a point in the future where 32bit won't be an option anymore.

[allen2]

I just hope software makers will improve their products before releasing them and don't forget older platform like microsoft tried to do with Windows Fundamental for legacy pc.

[CoffeeFiend]

The thing is simple, i hate poorly optimized applications and photoshop is a good example

Seriously, have you even used a recent version of Photoshop? It runs faster than ever (thanks to OpenGL acceleration). It's nothing short of fantastic. And it's a huge time saver in a thousand ways compared to anything else.

there are people out there who would buy a pc and keep it 10 years without upgrading it

And that isn't the kind of people most software or hardware companies target (those who buy nothing).

What is good in a new version of an application if it doesn't improve in terms of functionality/speed/performance ?

Most new apps improve in terms of functionality (Win7 sure did, Photoshop did in incredible ways, etc) and given decent hardware speed/performance improved a lot too (Win7 and Photoshop are both GPU-accelerated and both also benefit from a x64 CPU, etc)

If you go this way, i'll say how open source developers are paid ?

Not everything revolve around money in this world.

Most of them on the larger projects *are* getting paid by companies like Red Hat, IBM, Novell, Oracle, Intel, HP, etc. Mind you 99% of what they produce is absolute crap (IMO) that I don't want of, even for free (it's mostly crap, save for a few gems)

[allen2]

No i didn't bother to try last photoshop as i don't need it and don't own it (i could have downloaded a trial version). If i needed to improve picture or to edit photo, i would go for paint shop pro as it is much lighter and easier (for me of course) to handle.

As for the kind of people who don't buy hardware, they sometimes want to buy software but can't most of the time because their hardware isn't supported.

As for open source, of course they have sponsors, and for their quality and support i totally disagree with you because at least you don't pay for it.

When you buy a software and after one month it happen it isn't working in some cases, you'll ask for support and sometimes you don't get any.

We had cases at work where Microsoft didn't found any solution... just making us wait until we got tired of asking them.

With open source, at least people don't sell you something they are not able to do and if you are a little experienced, you'll be able to find a solution yourself.

Another example is the support for windows 2000 (it is ending soon), the people who bought windows 2000 didn't buy it for the bugs and the security flaws. So, after the end of the 2000 support, if a big flaw is discovered and exploited by something like a new conficker, there should not be an hotfix. It became normal that bugs and flaws aren't fixed and there you can't create a proper hotfix without the sources...

I can understand that like a waranty on hardware, you can't support software for ever (for hardware, there is third party companies who don't care how old servers are) but then Microsoft should either open the old source code not supported or at least transfer it to other companies willing to do it. Reverse engineering isn't an easy task and isn't legal either. And this behaviour is called "abuse of dominance".