64 bit your opinions please...

Hello all! I am currently running a 32 bit MSi board with and AMD
athlon 2500+. I have been thinking of taking the plunge and moving to
the 64 bit world. To do this I am thinking of getting an MSI 64 bit
Neo4 Platinum and powering it with an AMD 64x2 4200 processor. My
question/dilema is this: Given that Microsoft still hasn't gotten a
truly ready for prime time operating system out to us and there is a
considerable lack of drivers and programs what advantage is there to
moving to this platform now? If I do the upgrade will my current
windows programs run 'faster'? When executed will I see a noticeable
increase to justify the upgrade expense? While someone else stated that
'something' new will always be coming around the bend how much more (of
something you really really need) can be added to a board that has
pretty much everything now? If popular do you believe the cost of the
hardware will come down as more will be buying or stay up because of
the same reason? I don't mind paying the $$'s as long as there is a
return on my investment. ANY and ALL responses and opinions are
welcome... Thanks...

If you run any cpu-dependent games or simulators it will make a huge
difference, although they probably won't use both cores.
If you do things like render a movie while doing general computing in the
foreground it will make a big difference.
For internet and office apps, it really won't be worth the $.
For system maintenance tasks that max out the cpu and not the disk, it will
speed them up alot.

If you don't feel held back with the 2500 then you could wait a year until
the new socket AM2 is past its introduction and maturing and becoming
affordable, since it requires all new ddr2 memory. They'll stop making
socket 939 cpu's in about a year.
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Typically the something new coming around the corner this time is
another half baked effort again ... NO TOTAL PACKAGE

you are actually wasting money going to 64bit hardware because there is
next to no 64bit software to run on it and your 32bit stuff will
actually run slower on it

The only advantage is that you can brag to your friends that you have a
64bit machine and even then it is not REAL 64bit, it is an
intel/AMD/microsoft hacked version of the real big business ones

the only advantage of buying a new 64 bit computer over your old AMD or
Pentium 4 is that the cpu has more cache than your old system did so it
will run a tiny bit quicker that your 4 year old computer

Gone are the days when they doubled CPU speed every 18 months they
basically havent improved in the past 3 years

except for sideways moves like one or 2meg cache, dual core and 64bit
and changing plugs and sockets for most things to keep the cash cow
earning them money while we dont get any major improvement in speed
since 2003

No return on this investment



speedracer wrote:
Hello all! I am currently running a 32 bit MSi board with and AMD
athlon 2500+. I have been thinking of taking the plunge and moving to
the 64 bit world. To do this I am thinking of getting an MSI 64 bit
Neo4 Platinum and powering it with an AMD 64x2 4200 processor. My
question/dilema is this: Given that Microsoft still hasn't gotten a
truly ready for prime time operating system out to us and there is a
considerable lack of drivers and programs what advantage is there to
moving to this platform now? If I do the upgrade will my current
windows programs run 'faster'? When executed will I see a noticeable
increase to justify the upgrade expense? While someone else stated that
'something' new will always be coming around the bend how much more (of
something you really really need) can be added to a board that has
pretty much everything now? If popular do you believe the cost of the
hardware will come down as more will be buying or stay up because of
the same reason? I don't mind paying the $$'s as long as there is a
return on my investment. ANY and ALL responses and opinions are
welcome... Thanks...

"Legend" wrote

you are actually wasting money going to 64bit hardware because there is
next to no 64bit software to run on it and your 32bit stuff will actually
run slower on it

The 64-bit Athlon has such a fast memory controller that it will be tens of
% faster in 32-bit apps than the Athlon XP at the same clock speed.


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"Legend" wrote

the only advantage of buying a new 64 bit computer over your old AMD or
Pentium 4 is that the cpu has more cache than your old system did so it
will run a tiny bit quicker that your 4 year old computer

I finally can enjoy Trainz on my A64 clocked up to 3800+.
My mobile Barton couldn't cut it, even clocked up to 3000+.

Now it's smooth most of the time.

The A64 also renders movies much faster, which saves me time. Now if I just
had an X2 it could render the movies in the background without affecting
anything else.

Not everything is hype. Just alot of stuff ...

--
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Legend wrote:

you are actually wasting money going to 64bit hardware because there is
next to no 64bit software to run on it

There are many 64-bit GNU/Linux distributions available with hundreds of
bundled applications.

speedracer wrote:
Hello all! I am currently running a 32 bit MSi board with and AMD
athlon 2500+. I have been thinking of taking the plunge and moving to
the 64 bit world. To do this I am thinking of getting an MSI 64 bit
Neo4 Platinum and powering it with an AMD 64x2 4200 processor. My
question/dilema is this: Given that Microsoft still hasn't gotten a
truly ready for prime time operating system out to us and there is a
considerable lack of drivers and programs what advantage is there to
moving to this platform now? If I do the upgrade will my current
windows programs run 'faster'? When executed will I see a noticeable
increase to justify the upgrade expense? While someone else stated that
'something' new will always be coming around the bend how much more (of
something you really really need) can be added to a board that has
pretty much everything now? If popular do you believe the cost of the
hardware will come down as more will be buying or stay up because of
the same reason? I don't mind paying the $$'s as long as there is a
return on my investment. ANY and ALL responses and opinions are
welcome... Thanks...


What you would gain is SPEED and that alone is pretty good. If you are
talking about upgrading to Windows XP Pro x64, you might as well forget
it. I am surprise that there are x64 drivers for the cheap Epson R200
printer, and also ATI Theater Pro 550, and even Terratec is promising
for the sound card driver (though it's been delayed for a few months).
You would have no trouble getting any chipsets drivers in your
motherboard. But there are no supports from Okidata, Brother printers,
and Epson scanner and even Adaptec SCSI.