My devices are pretty old, are they gonna work on 64-bit Win 10 ?

It will use more RAM and more CPU - that's pretty much the whole point of moving to 64 bit .

You will see available RAM jump to 3.8 GB +

With your computer specs, I would say you will get a tiny improvement in performance and probably only when running actual 64 bit applications. The increase in free RAM will be used mostly by the increase in what 64 bit Windows requires to run itself. Going above 4 GB installed RAM is when you really need to move to 64 bit.

Now I don't know on whether I should install it. I mean yeah, the freed RAM will be used by the 64-bit system but it's still gonna use more of the CPU, right? Thus making my system a bit slower? I wanted to change to 64-bit for the RAM and because I currently have a problem with the video card drivers crashing and I was hoping that it'll fix it. It could be something else though.

I mean, I can still try it. I can make a backup of my 32-bit version and if my performance gets slower with 64 I can bring back 32. I don't know, with these low-end specs I really wanna get the most out of my PC. I know that I should buy a better one but for now I gotta stick with this one.

BicycleRow said:

Now I don't know on whether I should install it. I mean yeah, the freed RAM will be used by the 64-bit system but it's still gonna use more of the CPU, right? Thus making my system a bit slower? I wanted to change to 64-bit for the RAM and because I currently have a problem with the video card drivers crashing and I was hoping that it'll fix it. It could be something else though.

I mean, I can still try it. I can make a backup of my 32-bit version and if my performance gets slower with 64 I can bring back 32. I don't know, with these low-end specs I really wanna get the most out of my PC. I know that I should buy a better one but for now I gotta stick with this one.

Hi there

If the CPU is 64 bit capable it will 99.99% of the time be better to use the 64 bit OS - even with as little as 2 GB RAM.

Without going into OS internals too much - the instruction path for a 32 bit architecture running on a 64 bit CPU will require at least DOUBLE instruction length - OK doesn't mean 2 X as long but still an overhead.

Also where you WIILL see a humungous slow down is as you run more applications the 32 bit system will require SLOWER paging. It can take maybe 4 I/O seeks etc to actually resolve an address on HDD - whereas only 1 might be necessary on a 64 bit machine.

Slow HDD's also KILL any sort of performance too --I/O algorithms are newer and more efficient - even on older HDD's as well in the 64 bit OS.

Further - you have extra instructions on a 64 bit CPU that don't exist on a 32 Bit CPUso these have to be converted before execution on 32 bit OS - extra processing again required.

A bit of a "Geekish" reply - but the basic answer is even if you only have 2GB RAM it's still worthwhile going for 64 bit OS if your machine is capable of running it.

Cheers
jimbo

You don't seem to understand that using more CPU is a good thing. It's like the difference in having a 200 HP engine in a car and an 80 HP limiting governor on it. Take off the governor and use all 20p HP and you get better performance.

Now, once you consistently hit 100% CPU usage trying to run the programs you want, then it's time to upgrade the CPU.

But if you are using 40% at 32 bit and 80% at 64 bit, that is a good thing.

Well then. I think it's clear now. Thank you all for the replies. I'm gonna do it later today or tomorrow. Marking this as solved. :)

NavyLCDR said:

You don't seem to understand that using more CPU is a good thing. It's like the difference in having a 200 HP engine in a car and an 80 HP limiting governor on it. Take off the governor and use all 20p HP and you get better performance.

Now, once you consistently hit 100% CPU usage trying to run the programs you want, then it's time to upgrade the CPU.

But if you are using 40% at 32 bit and 80% at 64 bit, that is a good thing.

Hi there

@NavyLCDR

I don't want to disagree with you again here as I usually LIKE and agree with your posts but SLOW HDD's will kill ANY system -- even those with the latest i7 processors.

It doesn't matter if you have a HUMAN with an abacus or a fast i7 cpu if you have to wait an age to get a result from an I/O request.

Your Engine analogy is flawed : -- If you have a 2 HP engine or a 2,000HP engine - if they have to wait for GAS to be supplied they both will WAIT and won't run to spec !! -- Getting GAS is like receiving and fulfilling I/O requests.

A lowly i3 processor believe it or not will outperform the state of the art i7 processor if the i3 machine has say SSD's or fast 7200 RPM Hdd's with large cache's say 128 MB compared say with slow 5400 RPM old IDE drives on the i7 machine.

99% of the time when I've been asked to look at slow computer performance it's been HIDEOUSLY SLOW HDD's. RAM is very rarely an issue these days - nor is CPU unless you are into intensive gaming / video editing etc - but that's not a typical workload for most people.

Cheers

Jimbo

Mine is 7200 RPM and 16 MB cache (Hitachi HDP725050GLA360), good enough?

BicycleRow said:

Mine is 7200 RPM and 16 MB cache (Hitachi HDP725050GLA360), good enough?

Should be but :
although 16 MB cache is a bit small --these days for spinners you should look at 64MB cache as minimum - cache size also makes a HUGE difference as this is very fast memory and loads of I/O requests can get buffered here and processed very fast indeed.

That's why the "BLACK" spinners are usually more expensive than others for the same size -- you need to look at more than just purely absolute capacity of the HDD.

Cheers
jimbo

However, @jimbo45, we were not talking about upgrading hardware, were we? We were talking about upgrading the OS. If we were talking about upgrading hardware, I would agree with you and recommend that the first thing any user does is upgrade from an HDD to an SSD. But that wasn't the subject of this thread.

If the CPU is not being maxed out at say 90% consistently with 32-bit Windows, then there is room left for a performance increase by moving to 64-bit Windows. But, I will agree, if the user is also going to upgrade hardware, moving to an SSD should be first.

And....the upgrade from 32-bit Windows to 64-bit Windows is free.