64 bit Leopard - what's the best hardware for it?

[CyberBob859]

I noticed that in Steve Job's keynote at WWDC, he mentioned that "Leopard will be fully 64-bit". I believe he also said something like *most* of the current hardware will be able to run it.

Is it true that all current Mac hardware except for the Mac Mini (Core Duo) has 64 bit capability? If so, does that mean you need a 64-bit capable processor to run it?

Will my current MacBook (2GB RAM, 1.83 Ghz Core Duo) be able to run Leopard?

Anybody have any guess as to what hardware specs would run Leopard decently?

 

[flopticalcube]

Leopard will be both 32 and 64 bit. At this point in time and probably for the next year or two you won't notice any difference between the two.

 

[TWLreal]

Core Duo isn't 64-bit. Only Core 2 Duo and G5.

Anybody have any guess as to what hardware specs would run Leopard decently?

You actually need 64-bit software to take advantage of the performance.

The OS itself just being 64-bit does't make it magically faster.

As the previous post said, until people get their software out in 64-bit it won't make a damn difference.

 

[letaalio]

Isn't the OS in a way an application? I think there will be a positive difference between 10.4 and 10.5 for both Core Duo and Core 2 Duo macs..

 

[Soulstorm]

That's a pretty big subject you are touching there, and you don't even know it.

First of all, your current Macbook will not have the slightest problem running Leopard with all effects enabled. This is no windows. Apple has a policy of optimizing the OS to run even on very early hardware. Heck, 10.4 runs on my G3!

And 64 bit vs 32 bit has many factors we should consider before we make a final verdict.

I won't get into technical details, but I can say that you will see some difference in System processes that benefit from 64 bit architecture. There are applications today on Tiger that take advantage of 64 bit. There will be for Leopard. But now, Leopard can benefit from 64 bit in Quicktime movies, and generally all functions that require data processing and RAM management. Until we know what these functions are (which we don't, not until Leopard comes out) we can't have clue as to what performance improvements we will see because of Leopard supporting 64-bit. Even Spotlight can benefit from 64 bit, by processing the index file faster, because more data can be processed and addressed to memory in each processor cycle.

Just wait and see.