32-bit vs. 64-bit Computing - What's Really The Difference?

Sixty four bit computing, has been around since the beginning of computing, but it wasn't in the mainstream consumer marketplace until just a few years ago, while AMD announced AMD64 almost a decade ago. Getting the rest of the market to join up was aided by Intel's own implementation called Intel® 64. From there, you needed an operating system that supported the technology and applications that were compatible to take advantage of it. Before Windows® Vista and OS X 10.6, that was hard to come by. You've probably seen that Windows® 7 comes in 32 and 64-bit version and wondered what the difference is.  Even now, I'm still surprised at how long it's taken to convert everyone over.

Without getting too technical or doing any math, I'll explain the difference and why you should go with it.

The Difference:

In computing architecture, 32-bit and 64-bit refer to the size of data in terms of integers and memory addresses. CPUs and memory simply support 64-bit long values. It's easy to think about it in terms of literal addresses, too. Say you have a phone book, we'll call it a the 32-bit phone book, and the integers are the contact information for people. The 32-bit phone book can list a total of 4 gigabytes (GB) of memory, or over 4 billion integers. So this "32-bit phone book" can hold the names and contact information of all the people on the planet living today. Contrast that with the range of 64-bit addressing, which is over 18 quintillion integers and more memory that you get get right now, and you can say that the "64-bit phone book" would be able to store the names and contact information for all the people that ever were or will be on the planet.

For your computer, this gives you support for more system memory, and that means better multitasking and generally improved performance across the board.

How to get it:

It's quite easy to get a 64-bit system these days. Most every modern computer, application, and operating system is designed around the 64-bit architecture. Due to both availability and price, your average desktop computer system supports between 8 GB and 16 GB memory maximum, with high-performance motherboards, systems, and servers supporting much higher total, but still nowhere near the theoretical limit of the 64-bit range. That's just fine because buying anything near a petabyte (PB) of memory in this day and age would be a poor decision.

There's still plenty of headroom in the 64-bit architecture to last for many years to come, even considering how fast technology advances. 

Just go with it:

The obvious benefit to having more memory in your system is that it lets you hold more data in a place that the CPU can access quickly. Your RAM is a much faster resource than the virtual memory that your hard drive uses, in part because of the way the data is stored, on chips, and because of the speed of the interfaces. You may notice when your system is low on available RAM, it begins to chug and hang; that's your hard drive trying to keep up with the speedy demands of the CPU.

I was quite familiar with the warning message in Windows XP, telling me I was out of free memory.  While it's generally seen as the sweet spot amount of RAM to have, having more than 4 GB of memory in a 64-bit operating system can make it easier to manage large multimedia files like high definition videos and is essential for high-resolution 3D gaming. Audio and video recording also become more stable because the RAM provides an ample buffer while the hard drive busily spins away recording your data.

Plus, you can do fun things like open every Tech Tip article in your web browser at the same time!

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