From a developer's perspective:

The applications that benefit most are memory-bound applications because of the increase in RAM and a larger Memory Bus (path between processor and RAM). The larger Memory Bus can handle twice the amount of data. (64 vrs 32). A processor-bound application can still benefit and this leads to another topic...

The software developer may have to tweek the application to take advantage of 64 bit. The tweeks are low-level and one has to be using C/C++/Assembly. Anyway if one is not using these languages then performance is not an issue in whatever they're developing therefore no need to worry about 64/32bit.

Benchmarking an un-tweeked application between 32bit and 64bit may not show increased performance. Moreover, an increase in performance might not really be because the processor is 64bit, but might be because of new features introduced in the 64bit processor.



--- On Thu, 4/22/10, Alvin Jason Ochieng <ajochola@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Alvin Jason Ochieng <ajochola@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] Bytes for the week : 32bit or 64bit computing?
To: "Skunkworks Mailing List" <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke>
Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010, 11:12 AM

Same here !!! CURIOSITY KILLS ....am ready to die...

On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 11:07 AM, James Wachira
<jwaciira.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am also curious about experiences with 64bit OS/Apps
>
> On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 11:02 AM, aki <aki275@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Been looking at various advantages and disadvantages of 64bit over
>> 32bit. For example, on Windows machines, one key area that helps is
>> RAM that can be pushed to 128GB  removing the 4GB barrier that exists
>> on 32bit. 64bit applications availability maybe an issue but anyone
>> who has used say eg a MAC can relate to this better.
>>
>> Anyone using 64bit on this list. How has the performance been on
>> running 32bit applications like broswers, office tools, games?
>>
>> Rgds.
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>
>
> --
> With Kind Regards
> James Wachira
> Nairobi .ke
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>
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