A Matter of Speed: 32-bit vs. 64-bit

M

mdma-

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Messages
156
I've read a lot of issues people are having with Windows XP 64-bit addition. However, I'm not sure as to how much faster IE is, or if the operating system as a whole is more responsive.

For those you have made the upgrade, how much faster is IE 64-bit than 32-bit? Is the OS more responsive?

FanATIc said:
Internet Explorer 64-Bit is much faster, load pages instantly, the versions comes with both and its easily noticable. This was a nice treat.
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That seems to be more of a placebo effect. In the long run 64 bit OSes should be faster and more responsive....but that's when all the drivers and apps are written to take advantage of it. That day could be a long time from now.
 
but if the OS is using the 64-bit extensions, then it should run 2x as fast -- no?
 
djnes said:
That seems to be more of a placebo effect. In the long run 64 bit OSes should be faster and more responsive....but that's when all the drivers and apps are written to take advantage of it. That day could be a long time from now.
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explain to me why that should be the case. I don't understand the reason.
 
mdma- said:
but if the OS is using the 64-bit extensions, then it should run 2x as fast -- no?
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no, it shouldn't. Actually, since pointers are twice the size, it should be slower, shouldn't it? In the end, each pointer takes twice the amount of memory and needs twice the time to be transferred from memory to the CPU
 
Well I can tell you my XPx64 boot times are a lot faster. However! I have noticed, that it takes 6-8 sweeps on the WinXP64 logo before I instantenously get thrown into a fully loaded Windows. XPx32 Takes 1-2.5 Sweeps but sits on the WELCOME screen for far longer than it takes XPx64's extra 5-7 sweeps to process. I have to actually time it, but I can tell you it is much faster, and its NO placebo effect.

SafeMode even starts a helluva lot faster. F8 -- Safe Mode -- Watches a black screen for 5 seconds -- Safe Mode Loaded.

XPx32: F8 -- Safe Mode -- Watches a ton of scrolling text...waits......waits....-- Safe Mode.

Programs load much faster as well. (Once again I will do true testing and give you back the times) but it IS noticable. Photoshop CS loads about the same in XP and x64, BUT the difference comes when you close and reopen the app. x64 will call up the cached data much faster and load the program than XP did/could.

djnes: Is your favorite word Placebo? :D Haha. I see it in so many of your post. It makes me smile.
 
drizzt81 said:
explain to me why that should be the case. I don't understand the reason.
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If your asking why 64 bit OSes will be more responsive, read an article, such as the latest issue of MaximumPC that explains it all in detail. If your asking why it will take so long, it's because the software developers are always behind the OS, which is always behind the hardware, etc. That's how change always happens. I don't understand what you don't understand, so I can't go into detail anymore. Lemme know which part, and we'll go from there.
 
abudhu said:
djnes: Is your favorite word Placebo? :D Haha. I see it in so many of your post. It makes me smile.
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It's becoming one of my favorites on here, because it applies so well in so many situations on here. A simple glance through the Disk Drive forum will show the number of people who still think RAID0 improves overall system performance. :rolleyes:
 
mdma- obviously wasnt around for the 16-32bit conversion.

its gonna take years. hopefully less than 5.
 
djnes said:
It's becoming one of my favorites on here, because it applies so well in so many situations on here. A simple glance through the Disk Drive forum will show the number of people who still think RAID0 improves overall system performance. :rolleyes:
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seek times improve system performance.. and it is noted that raid0 increases seek times. hopefully they will all realize this soon. ;)
 
Jason711 said:
mdma- obviously wasnt around for the 16-32bit conversion.

its gonna take years. hopefully less than 5.
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We are well into the process already, actually over 1/2 way there. I'd say.

Hardware (done)-OS(done)-drivers/apps (in progress).

I'd give it another year to be "stable" and "fast".

abudhu,

"6-8 sweeps on the WinXP64 logo" is that a technical measurment? :p
 
^^ Lol. Nope. Just me counting the number of sweeps of blue bar. " 1 sweep...2 sweeps....3 sweeps...oh windows is loaded. Yay." As you can tell I have an advanced degree in the OS technology world ;) :p
 
64-bit's a touch faster. Nothing special. And 32-bit apps are a little slower, so unless the performance of the OS itself is really critical for you, then don't bother.
 
im running a dual boot xp home and 64. 64 still needs some work been working on a snag with it. also doesnt want to overclock as high. some things are smoother. but there is only beta drivers for my video card and i have a small problem with that and a app problem.
 
djnes said:
It's becoming one of my favorites on here, because it applies so well in so many situations on here. A simple glance through the Disk Drive forum will show the number of people who still think RAID0 improves overall system performance. :rolleyes:
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What are you talking about?
My 2x Raptors in RAID0 are faster then my old 120GB 7200rpm 10 fold!

Everything loads so much faster.
if having all programs install and load 10 x faster isn't an increase in system proformance, I don't know what is?
 
Majin said:
What are you talking about?
My 2x Raptors in RAID0 are faster then my old 120GB 7200rpm 10 fold!

Everything loads so much faster.
if having all programs install and load 10 x faster isn't an increase in system proformance, I don't know what is?
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Placebo.

Sorry! The administrator has specified that users can only post one message every 33 seconds.

*waits* :(

edit: Linky.
"If you haven't gotten the hint by now, we'll spell it out for you: there is no place, and no need for a RAID-0 array on a desktop computer. The real world performance increases are negligible at best and the reduction in reliability, thanks to a halving of the mean time between failure, makes RAID-0 far from worth it on the desktop.

There are some exceptions, especially if you are running a particular application that itself benefits considerably from a striped array, and obviously, our comments do not apply to server-class IO of any sort. But for the vast majority of desktop users and gamers alike, save your money and stay away from RAID-0.

Bottom line: RAID-0 arrays will win you just about any benchmark, but they'll deliver virtually nothing more than that for real world desktop performance. That's just the cold hard truth."

Add the MTBF/2 factor and RAID-0 is worthless.
 
Majin said:
What are you talking about?
My 2x Raptors in RAID0 are faster then my old 120GB 7200rpm 10 fold!
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10 fold, eh? That's the most ridiculous claim we've heard yet. As far RAID0 performance, please do yourself and all of us a favor and read the FACTS about it. No more myths...no more rumors...no more "my penis grew larger because I have a RAID array", etc. Just read the facts, especially Anandtech's Official Debunking.
 
djnes said:
10 fold, eh? That's the most ridiculous claim we've heard yet. As far RAID0 performance, please do yourself and all of us a favor and read the FACTS about it. No more myths...no more rumors...no more "my penis grew larger because I have a RAID array", etc. Just read the facts, especially Anandtech's Official Debunking.
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(puts on flame retardant suit)

Before I messed everything up with tying to do this Windows Install.
I sware I noticed impoved loading and install times with the Raid 0.
But since you have these posts to prove otherwise, who am I to say I am right... :rolleyes:

Maybe 10 fold is pushing it, and maybe it has more to do with the faster drives and not Raid 0 but I have noticed better loads and installs.
Period!
 
XP-64 boots faster, and its BSoD's have much longer memory addresses, but other than that its nothing special. It's very annoying not having an virtual CD program besides filedisk or whatever its called. The only anti-virus available for xp-64 that I could find when I installed it on my rig was avast!. Also, as far as I know, there is no cd burning software with 64bit drivers. There is a lot of hardware out there that doesn't have 64bit drivers either yet. If you are planning to switch to xp-64 now, make sure you dual boot it with xp 32bit.
 
Majin said:
What are you talking about?
My 2x Raptors in RAID0 are faster then my old 120GB 7200rpm 10 fold!

Everything loads so much faster.
if having all programs install and load 10 x faster isn't an increase in system proformance, I don't know what is?
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Someone get this guy a dunce suit... the raptors spin at up to 10k... verses the 7.2k you saw with the old 120... i'd be curious if you've switched to SATA in this process as well as that speeds things up again... all in all, your performance gains are NOT from the RAID-0
 
Majin said:
(puts on flame retardant suit)

Maybe 10 fold is pushing it, and maybe it has more to do with the faster drives and not Raid 0 but I have noticed better loads and installs.
Period!
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So then its having 8gig/sec transfer with 10000 rpm drives, and not raid 0, my bad! :(
 
dextrous said:
XP-64 boots faster, and its BSoD's have much longer memory addresses, but other than that its nothing special. It's very annoying not having an virtual CD program besides filedisk or whatever its called. The only anti-virus available for xp-64 that I could find when I installed it on my rig was avast!. Also, as far as I know, there is no cd burning software with 64bit drivers. There is a lot of hardware out there that doesn't have 64bit drivers either yet. If you are planning to switch to xp-64 now, make sure you dual boot it with xp 32bit.
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Nero work great, as for virus scanner NOD32 has a very good beta out there. the new filedisk is pretty good.
 
Majin said:
So then its having 8gig/sec transfer with 10000 rpm drives, and not raid 0, my bad! :(
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If you want to discuss RAID-0, start a thread, this is 32-64 bit thread, and we're starting to crap on it...
 
i loaded up x64 a few days ago, and so far i like it better besides a few minor issues i'm having.. the main thing i noticed that was faster was, since i have 6 desktops (3 desktops + dual view) and i normally have applications or something running on almost all of them, things seem a little quicker (could just be me trying to justify the whole x64 switch)..

the issues i'm having are, i can't install my audigy 2 so i have to use my onboard which is still good (i tried every driver i could find and they all say somethin like no supported hardware)

the other is i have to use the deer park alpha build of firefox for the 64bit, as sometimes the 32bit version 1.0.4 hangs on me..
 
Just because the X64 loads faster than XP doesn't make 64-bit faster. We have NO idea what code they changed in the OS. It certainly is NOT an exact copy of 32-bit that has been perfectly ported. Another possible thing is with driver writers being largely forced to do a lot of rewriting, there could be better drivers written instead of the 32-bit stuff that was possibly just chunked on top of winme support, which was chunked on top of win98 support etc. Cleaner drivers = better load times. This is PURE speculation though.

Longer pointers doesn't make the system slower, as a pointer is (usually) sized the same as the databus, meaning it fits in 1 send. The fact that the bus is 64bit isn't what makes the system faster. The fact that some operations on numbers bigger than 64bit can be optimized to be faster is what makes 64-bit better. And also the much larger amount of available registers. More registers dedicated for FPU, etc allow certain types of operations to go much much faster.

Until programs and compilers learn to take advantage of the bigger bus, 64-bit isn't going to do anything. It's the OTHER features available on the chip that make it better.
 
It has already been stated and confirmed that XP64 uses an updated Process Scheduler (Taken from Server 2003) or similar Variant. It seems more reponsive because of this. The OS is scheduling your process more efficantly than it did with XP32 bit. But this doent mean its really gonna be faster all the time.
 
darktiger said:
Nero work great, as for virus scanner NOD32 has a very good beta out there. the new filedisk is pretty good.
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I'm using Nero 6.3 Ultra and it comes up with the warning that this version of nero has known compatibility issues with this version of windows. If I choose to continue it does seem to burn stuff fine so far. Also, I am aware of the NOD32 beta, but I try to stay away from using betas for stuff like my virus scanner. Finally, I have issues with installing stuff that uses multiple CD's images or DVD images. Some programs will not let you unmount an image while the installer is running - even if its asking you to put in the next CD. I guess it still has some of the files on the image open.

The fact that XP x64 is based on windows server 2003 more than XP should make everthing a bit smoother and perhaps more stable.
 
I just ran a bench of 3dmark 2001 on xp home than rebooted into xp64 all settings equall just different os. xp64 was 1000 points lower in score. im not impressed at all.
 
purefun65 said:
I just ran a bench of 3dmark 2001 on xp home than rebooted into xp64 all settings equall just different os. xp64 was 1000 points lower in score. im not impressed at all.
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While this is indicative of what most people have found, it's not quite fair to compare them as of yet. Once the drivers mature for XP64, then re-run your tests. The results may very well be the same...no one knows.
 
The thing that'll make 64-bit actually run faster is the increase in the number of CPU registers. x86 only has 8 general purpose registers. AMD64 has 16. I'd assume EMT64 does as well. That's still not a lot (some RISC chips have far more... 64, 128, etc.).
More registers is a bit of a trade off in that it makes task switches take longer, but 8 really just wasn't enough. Doubling the number available will greatly reduce the number of load and store operations between registers and cache/main memory.
 
I just (within 5 mins) installed the deerpark beta FireFox (or is it an alpha?). Anyway, I click on HardForum from my bookmarks, HOLY SHIT its fast.
I know that it could be that it doesn't have flash installed (newegg banner on top is flash, I have to look at the less than attractive gif) and the load here would then be quicker, but good lord its quick. It feels instantaneous.

I have used the 64 bit IE but I swear I notice no difference in that.

I can run this and 32 bit FF next to eachother and see if I can tell a difference. I'll post back if I think I am getting the placebo effect.

EDIT: Nevermind, this seems to have overwritten my other FF install. Oh, and its Alpha not Beta.
 
XP64 just uses Resources Better than 32 Bit. It is streamlined and improved. I mean what can you expect, XP32 Bit edition came out in 2001. So this is some many years improvement.

:) It may not be an Outstanding change, but worth it if you are a system builder and need a OS to use ;) I dont think that its worth the 180$ upgrade if you already have XP32 bit... but if you dont already... pick up 64 bit
 
I am very pleased with XPx64 so far.

But!

The one negative thing I've noticed so far is the large impact it has had on Guild Wars. It might just be for me, but during large scale battles my FPS drops to about 15-25FPS. While on 32 bit Windows the same battle remained within 30-50FPS. Something is annoyingly wrong....
 
USMC2Hard4U said:
It may not be an Outstanding change, but worth it if you are a system builder and need a OS to use ;) I dont think that its worth the 180$ upgrade if you already have XP32 bit... but if you dont already... pick up 64 bit
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I got it for $140, where did you get $180 from?

I recommend it if you are building a new system and have to get windows again. I cant recommend XP Pro knowing this is out there and for the most part (in my experience) works.

EDIT: I think you are adding XP32 and XP64 together in that cost, but if that true where are you getting a $40 copy of XP32?
 
I didnt buy it yet. But I assumed that it was 180$

because when I bought XP32 OEM like a year ago, it was 180
 
Ok, XP 64 is now annoying me. For some reason my Audigy 2 ZS drivers just won't install. Either they start working, or I'm getting digital 5.1 speakers and just using the onboard sound. My onboard supports 5.1, but doesn't have analog ports for it.
 
zandor said:
The thing that'll make 64-bit actually run faster is the increase in the number of CPU registers. x86 only has 8 general purpose registers. AMD64 has 16. I'd assume EMT64 does as well. That's still not a lot (some RISC chips have far more... 64, 128, etc.).
More registers is a bit of a trade off in that it makes task switches take longer, but 8 really just wasn't enough. Doubling the number available will greatly reduce the number of load and store operations between registers and cache/main memory.
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This is exactly what I've been saying all along. However, while more registers does make context switches take longer, there has been some severe optimizing done to this, at least in the linux kernel. The IA-64 implementation in the linux kernel has a lot of optimization for context switching on it's processor. The IA-64 Linux Kernel by Mossberger has a LOT of in-depth detail about this.

More registers does FAR more good than harm up to a pretty ridiculously high point.
 
Fryguy8 said:
More registers does FAR more good than harm up to a pretty ridiculously high point.
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Yep. That's pretty much the deal. I was disappointed when I heard they were only going to 16. I was hoping for at least 32. I still wonder why they went with 16. My guess is it has something to do with 32-bit compatibility. Perhaps adding a lot of registers would have compromised 32-bit performace.
At least I got my sound working. I reinstalled and loaded the sound drivers before doing anything else.
As far as the speed vs. 32-bit goes goes, the only major improvement I've noticed so far is I no longer have the annoying pause when opening the control panel. I think that might have just been a quirk of my system though. I don't recall having noticed the lag on other machines.
Other than that, I think disk IO might be faster, but it's hard to say. I'll have to play with it some more. I've heard numerous times that XP (32) has some problems with its SCSI implementation, so perhaps they've fixed it. I know Linux certainly does better on disk IO than XP 32 does on this rig.
 
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