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Benefits of 64 Bit

thechris69

thechris69

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 11, 2005
377
0
What would the benefits be of a computer with 64 bit be compared to a cpu with 32 bit? Im asking this because Leopard is right around the corner
 
You get more registers, and 64-bit registers.

The Intel CPUs aren't 64-bit like the PPC970 -- which had 64-bit virtual memory (and 42-bit physical memory), they are running 64-bit registers, 48-bit virtual memory, and 36-bit physical memory.

The PPC970 was a beast, the Intel CPUs are a bit less complex and deliver what is needed on the desktop now.

Of course people may say the 64-bit Core 2 Duo doesn't give you much more RAM than a G3/G4/Core Duo which are also all 36-bit -- I think.

---

As far as the 64-bit benefit from Apple, it'll get you more than 2GB of RAM on a Mac ... and RAM is among the top performance boosters on the machine. And the 32GB limit on the XServe and Mac Pro, is a biggie to Pro performance.

If you have it, 10-20GB/s beats the snot out of 50MB/sec.
 
thechris69 said:
What would the benefits be of a computer with 64 bit be compared to a cpu with 32 bit? Im asking this because Leopard is right around the corner
Click to expand...

You can use more ram, and on Intel Macs it's a few % faster. There are some other things as well, but they're under NDA, and not directly related to the 64 bitness.
 
Sun Baked said:
You get more registers, and 64-bit registers.

The Intel CPUs aren't 64-bit like the PPC970 -- which had 64-bit virtual memory (and 42-bit physical memory), they are running 64-bit registers, 48-bit virtual memory, and 36-bit physical memory.

The PPC970 was a beast, the Intel CPUs are a bit less complex and deliver what is needed on the desktop now.

Of course people may say the 64-bit Core 2 Duo doesn't give you much more RAM than a G3/G4/Core Duo which are also all 36-bit -- I think.

---

As far as the 64-bit benefit from Apple, it'll get you more than 2GB of RAM on a Mac ... and RAM is among the top performance boosters on the machine. And the 32GB limit on the XServe and Mac Pro, is a biggie to Pro performance.

If you have it, 10-20GB/s beats the snot out of 50MB/sec.
Click to expand...

Wow! That is really good to know.:)
 
It is the best model. It allows you to move applications from 32 to 64 bits most easily.
 
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