Win 7 32 bit to 64 bit?

[CgoRacer84]

Hi. I have read pages and pages of threads here and see that you are all very helpful, so I thought I would see if I can get some help too.

I just bought a laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit preinstalled. How much of a difference in performance would I see if I upgrade to Home Premium or Professional 64 bit? Is it worth the $$$?

The laptop has 4 GB RAM and a 512 MB video card (and there are no additional slots to fill to get more RAM).

Thanks for responding!

 

[jedimasterben]

It wouldn't necessarily be faster (unless you were using software that runs in 64-bit, in which there would be some performance increase), but you would be able to use all 4GB of your RAM, and Windows may see a performance boost from that extra RAM.

It wouldn't cost you anything, as your serial key for any 32-bit version is valid for the 64-bit version as well.

 

[bc4]

You would be able to use the total amount of ram in your system but for most users the increase of about 1gb of ram will not make a huge difference.

I guess if I were in your situation, I would stay with the 32bit OS. I would say to watch the system usage to see how much ram you are using but most (non power) users get confused because of windows superfetch, which will always use most of the available ram to load recently programs

 

[ubernoobie]

It wouldn't necessarily be faster (unless you were using software that runs in 64-bit, in which there would be some performance increase), but you would be able to use all 4GB of your RAM, and Windows may see a performance boost from that extra RAM.

It wouldn't cost you anything, as your serial key for any 32-bit version is valid for the 64-bit version as well.

He bought the laptop and it was oem so you would have to phone microsoft to validate if you do decide to upgrade to 64bit with same key, I agree it might see a boost but not worth it if you don't want to call microsoft and take 10-30mins to validate

 

[CgoRacer84]

Thanks for the opinions guys. So it sounds like I won't have to spend any extra money after all but there probably won't be much of a difference in performance if I go 64 bit. I use the laptop for games (rFactor), HD video editing, and Web surfing.

 

[geofelt]

Thanks for the opinions guys. So it sounds like I won't have to spend any extra money after all but there probably won't be much of a difference in performance if I go 64 bit. I use the laptop for games (rFactor), HD video editing, and Web surfing.

You will see no diference in performance. The extra ram(.5gb) you can address will make no difference to a single task like gaming. Don't bother going to 64.