Just thinking of upgrading my pc 
Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2Ghz
4 GB RAM
Vista business 32 bit
Was thinking of an i5 processor, with suitable MB and 4GB RAM and maybe win7 64 bit.
Then I wondered if my current machine would run 64 bit - which it will!
Question therefore is: is it worth a go with windows 7 64 on my current machine to up the performance or should I go the whole hog and spend £500+ on
a new machine?
Ta
Mark
I would not bother personally unless you run 64bit applications as well.
If you want to increase speed of application and the os, then get a solid state drive.
You need to think carefully about moving to a 64bit OS, are stable drivers available for all the peripherals you have? Are there any issues with the
32 bit applications you use? Do you need to run any old 16 bit applications?
Just running a 64bit OS will not ncessarily gain you performance, in fact 32 bit apps can actually run slightly slower due to the overhead of the CPU
switching modes.
I'm running win7 x64 now 
but my thinking was the other way round - I have already upgraded to an i7 (the 920 LGA1366 one) with 6Gb of ram, etc........
so I've set it up with the 64 bit os as well (figured I might as well give it a go) although the retail version of 7 that I got comes with both
32 and 64 bit discs anyway so I can always change later if need be
I've not had any driver issues yet, but all my bits are from brands with really good support or just use the generic windows drivers
and I've kept my old 32bit XP machine as well for any old stuff - eventually I guess I'll stop using the old one as my software gets more
upto date (just like I eventually stopped using win98 about 3 years ago 
)
IMHO changing your old maching onto an x64 OS will just cause you alot of hassle, so its only worth doing if you really need it for 64 bit apps
(save it for the new machine when you do that anyway)
[Edited on 14/11/09 by mcerd1]
Unless you need 64 bit processing ability then it's not worth it!!
just gone from xp 32 bit to 7 64 bit with no problems on my oldish machine(built round a q6600 quad)
main thing is 64 bit can use all my 4gb of ram.
as long as you can get all your drivers and your software will work there is no reason not to go 64 bit
all core 2 duo processors are EMT64 so are designed to work with 64Bit OS.
you will have to remember that all applications and vedors will start moving to 64bit only very soon.
so in answer to your question.. your Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2Ghz is 64bit capable
Going 64 bit is essential if you want to use more than about 3GB of RAM effectively but with Windows you can get a number of issues with drivers not
being available etc.
64 bit will give you performance gains but only really if the apps are designed to make best use of the extra CPU registers and other goodies which
come along with 64 bit computing.
I run a 2 year old Apple iMac as my home machine and it is running a 64 bit CPU, 32 bit kernel (to allow 32 bit driver support), 64 bit operating
system and 64-bit applications (most of them). I can say without a doubt that the 64 bit apps are faster than the 32 bit equivalents.
I don't want to start a Mac versus PC argument but if you have never seen a modern Apple machine then try to pop into a local Apple retail store
and have a look before you go around the PC loop again. You might be pleasantly surprised. I switched to the Mac 2 years ago after 25 years of PC
building and since then my Dad and a close friend have followed suit along with a couple of work colleagues. My friend just called me tonight to say
that a friend of his has now bought a 27" iMac today after seeing his machine in action. It's a similar story across the UK according to
recent market share figures. I for one will never go back to a PC!
Whatever you decide, good luck!
Craig.
biggest downside to a mac is if like me, you like a bit of gaming to get through those winter months you need a pc
quote:
Originally posted by bigfoot4616
biggest downside to a mac is if like me, you like a bit of gaming to get through those winter months you need a pc
quote:
Originally posted by craig1410
As an example, you can now buy an iMac with 2.8GHz Quad Core Intel Core i7 CPU with 3.46GHz Turbo Boost, ATI Radeon HD 4850 GPU, 16GB RAM, 2TB Disk. To top it all it comes with a gorgeous 27" LED backlit display with native resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. Not exactly a toy!!
quote:
Originally posted by MikeRJ
quote:
Originally posted by craig1410
As an example, you can now buy an iMac with 2.8GHz Quad Core Intel Core i7 CPU with 3.46GHz Turbo Boost, ATI Radeon HD 4850 GPU, 16GB RAM, 2TB Disk. To top it all it comes with a gorgeous 27" LED backlit display with native resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. Not exactly a toy!!
At what cost though? A sizeable chunk more than buying the same hardware in a PC I suspect?
quote:
Originally posted by craig1410
The screen is fantastic and although I am unaware of anywhere you can buy a comparable screen (27" LED backlit IPS TFT) for a PC it would be expensive.