Windows 7 requirements

[Ralath]

64 bit is supposed to be faster because it is able to use more of a system's........ stuff.

I think right now, most stuff is transitioning to 64 bit but sometimes 32 bit applications have problems running on 64 bit computers...


(That's basically all I understand about 32 bit/64 bit and all I need to know.. xD)

[Triumph]

Vista looks fine but I care more about what its like underneath, and it happens to be a resource hog. Windows 7 is double the hog of vista....so I definitely won't be getting it.

Mac with duel boot windows XP will be my next machine

Macs are all icing with no cake. Their performance is good, yes, and they look nice, but you pay quite a bit more for the same performance level. You also can't stuff an i7 processor into that tiny Mac.

Not to mention PC has much more software compatibility.

I guess Mac OS must really be that bad if you need to dual OS the chief competitor's product onto your computer as well.

[ThievingSix]

Just because requirements went up doesn't mean it's more of a resource hog. Go dual boot Win7 and Vista to see =).

32bit and 64bit refers to the amount of RAM the computer can address.

The limit of RAM on 32bit machines is 4gb. The rest is ignored. The reason why is simple:

On the computer an address has a structure like this 00000000. This number points to a section of the RAM. Now 32bits is 4 bytes. Each byte is 2 digits. Hence the 8 digits. Now since the computers use HEX(base 16) each digit can be an F which is equal to our base 10 number 16.

Now FFFFFFFF is equal to 4294967295 bytes. Which just so happens to be 4gb.

64bit systems can reference 8 bytes or 18446744073709551615 bytes. Which makes the new limit on RAM really really big.


Basically, computers with less than 4gb ram are 32 bit, more than 4gb ram 64bit.

And yes, the Core i7 is awsome.

[secbro20]

Macs are all icing with no cake. Their performance is good, yes, and they look nice, but you pay quite a bit more for the same performance level. You also can't stuff an i7 processor into that tiny Mac.

Not to mention PC has much more software compatibility.

I guess Mac OS must really be that bad if you need to dual OS the chief competitor's product onto your computer as well.

I like Mac OS, and when I did have one, I didn't duel boot XP on it, I just used the Mac OS. The only reason I'm duel booting windows if/when I get my mac is to play fiesta (since its not compatible). Other than that, I'll be using the mac OS.

When comparing performance level, do you mean just hardware? 2gb of ram will preform much better in a Mac then in a PC. If you make two computers with identical hardware and one is mac and one is a PC, the mac will have better performance. Mac hardware is more expensive, yes, but it would preform better because the Mac OS uses half the resources of a windows OS.

Though you are correct about compatibility and higher end processors, but I'm fine with that.

[Triumph]

I acknowledge that Macs make better use of the hardware provided to them. The hardware performance on a Mac will always exceed that of a PC. Macs are more of a style accessory, and is better for lower-end applications.

I do, however, like Mac touchpads and style chassis. I'm shopping for a laptop myself, so I've been doing some homework on this.

[Hessah]

OOOo thanks T6!

[Phantom Badger]

....I'm a PC

[lamchopz]

I can't bring myself to like Macs, no matter how I try. ~.~