x86 vs x64 windows7 on an i7 processor [closed]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
32-bit vs. 64-bit systems

I have a laptop with a new i7 Q720 processor that currently runs Windows-7 32 bit. With the exception of limiting my RAM to 4gb, are there any other ways that the 32bit OS is hindering my laptop performance?

Answer 1

You should prefer x64 for both Vista and Windows 7, unless you have a good reason not to. And about the only good reason not to is the need to support an older device that does not have a good x64 driver. Unfortunately, this category still includes many printers and sound cards, so check both. If you can find a good x64 driver for your sound card and printer, you can probably find one for everything else.

Answer 2

Among other differences, when the processor runs in 32-bit mode, there are not as many general-purpose registers available. See Wikipedia's list of differences.

Answer 3

You likely can not address all of the ram due to the need to address memory locations for devices. A change to a 64 bit OS would allow the addressing of those additional memory locations. Also as mentioned there is the difference in registers available. The following should give you some idea about how this all works in Windows land: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx So really the limit is 4gb-graphics memory-other device addresses....