Settle a debate: how many of you use a 64-bit OS or >=4 GB RAM?

None of the above: 64 bit CPU, 64 bit OS, 4GB RAM

I hit "Enter" too soon and submitted a half-done poll. Try to go again.

I'm going to, once Intel finaly releases some CPUs later this month!

I presume that windows includes both XP and Vista.

It includes every version of Windows that has a 64-bit version- Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server. Windows XP also has an Itanium IA64 port, so if you are running that, check the 64-bit Windows box as well (and tell us as I've never seen anybody with an Itanium).

Considering that less then a handful of the THG forum users have used servers let alone multiple servers your survey will be flawed.

I have over 100 servers in house and have found that a 64-bit Redhat running more than 4GB (most of my machines run 8-32GB RAM) is far superior to the 64-bit win2k3 servers running more than 4GB of RAM.

If you are looking for a personal machine responses.
I prefer 32-bit Linux or 32-Bit Windows (Vista) with 4GB. Yes it is true that windows cannot support the full 4GB but i have run into very little issues with this setup. In my opinion the 64-bit windows OS's do not have the driver support needed to be easily used and maintained.

Argh I misread and voted wrong one. I meant to hit 64-bit CPU with 32-bit OS

MU - Thanks for the edit: Vote submitted accordingly.

And I think you may find 64 bit and 4GB categories (32 and 64 bit) to be over-represented vis~a~vis the general user population. This being an enthusiast site consisting of users with e~Peens.   (and Yes, I count myself in that group...)

I have multiple computers, so the most powerful has XP64 Pro with 4 gig of ram, but two others are XP 32 bit with 2 gig of ram and one a Vista 64 that presently has 2 gig, but will be getting 4 gig later. Overall, I like the XP64 machine the best at this time, though its was limited earlier because of driver issues. I expect that during the next couple years, my XP 32 bit machines will be upgraded to either XP64 or Vista 64.

I was meaning this to be a desktop/laptop user survey but if you have a server in your own house (residence) count yourself in for that.



The only servers I have ever dealt with didn't run Windows either. The first was a Macintosh Centris print server running MacOS 7 and hooked to a very early Apple LaserWriter and a dot-matrix but color ImageWriter. That had to be about a dozen years ago. The second was a dump of an Athlon XP 1600+ unit running Red Hat 7.3 and handled login from about 15 whitebox Athlon XP machines (mostly 2400+s), this guy's desktop (dual Athlon MP) that ran FC4, and the two number crunchers I built for him (dual 2.8 Xeon Irwindales, 4 GB RAM, FC5 64-bit and X2 5200+, 4 GB RAM, FC6 64-bit.) The third and fourth were university servers that I used for work, not worked on physically. One was a dual 2.8 Xeon Dell running RHEL 4 and the other was a dual Xeon 5060 unit with 12 GB RAM that was the head node on a 512-CPU Rocks cluster made up of 128 2Us, each with two 2.8 Paxvilles and 4 or 6 GB RAM.

I think you're right WRT the general population as there are still people like my grandma that run Windows 98 on a K6-2 with 64 MB RAM. Bu tit is interesting to see what enthusiasts run. I probably should have broken down the choices between 64-bit XP and 64-bit Vista as supposedly Vista has little uptake in enthusiast circles.

I recently installed another 2GB in my PC using Windows XP 32-bit; for a total of 4GB physical RAM.

I basically did it because I was getting memory allocation errors when playing a large world in Civilization IV late into the game. In the Task Manager it was using about 1.5GB of memory. I figured adding in an additional 2GB of RAM would resolve the issue but it didn't.

Note: 4GB of physical RAM, but only 3GB recognized in Windows XP 32-bit.

WFW3.11 Forever! i originally had 128mb of ram, but added another 128mb because it gave me extended memory errors when i couldn't play tie fighter on WindowsME.

I intended to transplant my current mobo, RAM, CPU & video card into my next HTPC and install Windows Vista 64-bit. However, after doing some research I actually might stick with Win XP Pro until 2009 when Microsoft intend to release Vista's replacement.

Hopefully, the new OS will include the features that were supposed to be in Vista, but were eventually dropped. Specifically, that would be the new filing system and security features.

Was running Vista 64 w/4GB but went back to XP 64....Vista is a$$....

wow surprised how many other 64bit windows users we had out there.

Currently using 2gb for XP Home 32bit.
Also Linux FC5 (one system) / FC6 (another system) both with 1gb, swap partition never gets touched.

Was thinking about getting Vista Home Prem, and run 4gb...   . o O ( but but but, I still like my XP home)

I totally agree on the old computer stuff - Up until the holidays, my sister's family were still running the 486 I had given them when I had replaced it.... I had forgotten all about the thing until she mentioned during the summer they were sill using it. I felt so bad I built them a new box out of a used 975XBX2 mobo I had laying around...

Regarding Vista 64, I'm pretty sure that's over represented here as well. There's a few people I can think of off the top of my head. I think it's more a matter of the people who *do* use it tending to keep their mouths shut rather than have the Windows version of the endless AMD/Intel war shoved down our throats.  

how do i see the results? (having voted)

I'm using XP 32 with 4 GB of RAM. It sees only 3.25 GB but it's more than I need anyway. I'll buy Vista 64 after the service pack is out, if the service pack gets good reviews.

Refresh the page.

My week old system below. So far so good running Crysis, Bioshock and Oblivion. On a side note I went to Circuit City to replace my work computer and they had only Vista for sale no XP computers in the store.

you won't get a true result from this vote. remember, all the people you are sampling are enthusiasts. we're outnumbered by other parts of the consumer market, which mainly consists of people who don't know what 64 bits are, and don't care.

That's true, but if you were to count non-enthusists, you would find there are a lot of people like my daughter in law who bought a Vista 64 OS because that's what the store offered, and she got 4 gig of ram because that's what the guy in the store said was best. I think she's like the majority of buyers at Best Buy, etc. They don't know what they're buying and they really don't care, but they'll do as the salesman directs because he said that's what to buy.

I use 64-bit Gentoo Linux and have 4GB of ram. I'm getting 2 more sticks soon to make it 8GB. I have a quad core and its nice to have all that ram when you run things like folding@home.

<--- Has four systems. All with 64 bit processors and 2GB of RAM.
1 XP-64 <--Graphically most powerful
1 XP Home
1 XP Pro
1 XP MCE <-- Most powerful CPU

-Wolf sends

I have to agree with Frozenlead -- also, only 1 in 5 people actually use computers.

And, the vote doesn't show those that use multiple 64bit OS's on the same hardware -- I run Mac OS X 10.5.1 and Vista x64 Ultimate on my MacPro with 8GB RAM.

There is little or no point install Vista x64 if you don't have 4GB or more or RAM or don't plan to.

Before those who jump in saying what applications support 64bit, be sure to qualify "applications" -- if you mean Games, not many (a few, very few). If you mean real world get things done applications such as Video editing/composition and/or Audio creation and/or graphics and 3D Processing then you will need as much RAM and processing power as you can get.

I've got Photoshop HDR files that are over 100MB per image -- keeping a good undo level state and my RAM is quickly consumed. My single SD based video capture from a MiniDV device will be 4GB+ file size (just for SD stuff, not even HD quality), the more of this data I can fit into RAM the faster and smoother my video editing experience. And then toss in video compositions (Motion 3) where even moderate projects will require RAM previews (just not enough CPU power even with 8 processors to keep a steady realtime state at 30 fps) and force render copies of segments of the project. And anyone that does significant audio creation using FX and Virtual Instruments will need to bounce the tracks due to limits of the CPU and RAM.

I could NOT imagine trying to do all this with a handicapped 32bit OS that can't address more than about 3.5GB RAM and has a 2GB RAM thread limit (aka Vista 32bit and WinXP 32bit). Actually I can imagine, I've done this on a 32bit OS and the process if PAINFULL and extremely slow!!

Vista x64 didn't feel "smooth" until I tossed 8GB of RAM at it.

@Ivdax

bollocks!! I use 64 bit for years now (linux, xp and vista) and I do 3d modelling, animation and compositing! you got no clue how usefull 64 bit is for such programs. and who said you don't get the drivers??

64 BIT CPU + 4GB RAM + XP 64  

2 systems -

1) Vista 64 4g DDR2 - No problems here what-so-ever with it, don't know what all the fuss is about  

2) XP 32 2g DDR

32 bit processor (Core Duo), 32 bit OS (Windows XP MCE) and 2 GB of RAM (best $40 upgrade EVER)

new system as of nov 2007
6000+;m2nsli deluxe;8800gt;2x2gb ddr2 800
vista 64bit home premium
no problems at all, solid as a rock and games like there's no tommorrow.
crysis all settings very high no AA 1680x1050 on 20" widescreen

I've been running 64 bit vista for awhile now, never had a single driver problem or crash despite all the weird crap I do.... and this is with creative drivers  

1) Gaming machine most powerful 64 bit Vista 4G
2) XP pro 32 Bit 2G do most everything on except gaming
3) DVD carousel machine XP home 32 bit 1G
4) Wife"s machine XP Pro 32 bit 2G
5) Daughters machine XP home 32 bit 2G

HAHA! That's the indication I get. LOL too funny.

For real... the only time my 4 gigs of RAM even gets close to fully loaded is when Vista is idle and prefetching. During gaming it only hits 40-60% max.

MU - Obstaining from voting for the following reason:

64 bit proc / 32 bit XP / 2GB RAM at present, BUT

going to

64 bit proc / 64 bit Vista / 4 GB RAM (2x2 GB for expandability) as soon as 45 nm procs are out en-masse and reasonably priced.

I run 4gb of ram on a 64bit cpu, with a 32bit OS. Was thinking about a 64bit OS, but vista not that great. Might reconsider IF the service pack actually makes vista worth it.....

I run a single server with a couple Xeons w/8Gb and a 6600 w/8Gb for Virtual Machines If I wasn't running 4-12 VM's in our test lab I wouldn't need to go past 4Gb. Even with the VM's I have absolutely no need for more then 4 cores. Our office SQL and Oracle databases only support 12 people they perform well with a roomy four gigs.

The video and modeling users need more power then business users.... quite the change

Currently using 64 bit cpu + OS (vista) and 2 gigs of RAM.
Next upgrade will extend this to 8 gigs of RAM  

64-Bit CPU (Opty 175)
32-Bit Vista Ultimate
3 Gigs of RAM
My motherboard will only address 2.75 of it :-(

You not have PAE enabled?

What's that?

I've got an Asus A8N-SLI motherboard (S939). I've looked through all the BIOS settings (up to date BIOS as well) and search using The Google and couldn't find a resolution.

The issue isn't Windows, as the motherboard in it's BIOS says it only has ~2.75 (I don't remember the exact amount).

Q6600/Vista 64 Ultimate/8 GB PC8000.

E6850
8GB RAM
Vista 64

Seems to handle my virtualization tasks well enough. Never had a challenging time finding drivers for Vista 64 (which runs amazingly, and therefore, surprisingly well.

Oh, if BIOS is only reporting 2.75 then it's not PAE which is Physical Address Extension. It was 32 bit Windows version of dealing with more than 2 gig of RAM. That's a feature of Windows though, if you are seeing only 2.75 in BIOS then ouch  

I'm home now and here's the actual number: 2815MB of RAM

doesn't work for me, it still gives those voting options but clicking on them gives just a message saying that I have allready voted. 'see the results' button does the same thing.
coming to think of it, I've never seen any results on the new forum  
Weird...

Here are the current results:



I think the results will be skewed towards those of us with 64-bit/4GB due to the title of the thread. ie - I think many not using 64/4 won't click into it.