32bit or 64bit?

Posted on: December 1st, 2009

With newer computers coming out, one runs into the 64bit machines. But there is some confusion on what it is and whether it’s good, or not.

First of all, what does 32bit and 64bit refer to?

These numbers indicate the width of the address that the computer can access the internal memory (RAM). 32 Bit means 2³² = 4 294 967 296 possible addresses. This means 4 gigabytes of addressable memory. For some technical reasons the actual usable memory by a 32 bit system is 3Gb.

Now, 64 bit machines theoretically use 64 bits for addressing (in practice they use 52 or 48 bits) and that enormously increases the amount of RAM it can handle (to 256 TeraBytes at least – 1TB is 1,000 Gb). We won’t see that much RAM in a computer for a while.

The reason 64 bit machines and the 64 bit versions of Windows along with them, started to pop-up is because RAM got cheaper and cheaper and PC manufacturer wanted to put more than 3GB of RAM in their computers.

Now, this is all good. But, there are some drawbacks to 64 bit.

Regular applications, like a word processor, or a web browser is not affected by being run under a 64bit system. But software that operates at closer levels to the hardware might malfunction if it was written and tested in a 32bit environment but is being run on a 64bit system.

The most important software that are affected by this:

Device drivers, including printer drivers.
Antivirus, antispyware, internet security applications
Some games

So if you have a computer with a 64bit Windows then you’d need to watch to make sure that if you are getting a new software, or piece of hardware then that item has a 64bit support.

How can I check whether I have a 64bit version of Windows, or not?

One simple way of finding it out is by right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties. Right on the General tab you’ll see whether your Windows is 32bit, or 64bit. If you don’t see either of them that means yours is 32bit.

Future Trend:

What I see is that the portion of computers with 64bit Windows has increased dramatically in the last 2 years. Now about 30-50% of them has 64bit version of Windows on them. That means any software and hardware manufacturer that has not made their product compatible with 64bit Windows will get the heat from the users.

That doesn’t mean that they will create the 64bit versions for old equipment and software. So you might be out of luck if you get a computer with a 64bit Windows but you can’t get the old trusty printer, or scanner to work.

But all new software and hardware almost without exception has support for 64bit. Simply because it has become mainstream as opposed to rarity.

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