Ive been using 64 bit machines for years now but have never used a 64 bit operating system. I am looking for the short and sweet of it here guys.....does 64 bit computing bring any NOTICEABLE increase in performance?

to early to go 64bit, it's not worth it (in my opinion)

I have the same question as the 'poster.' I have a new HP laptop with 2gig and Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. If I upgrade to Ultimate, would I notice a performance increase? Seems to me I should see something if I get the OS to run 64 bit instead of 32 bit
Areas I'm lookin for an increase are:
Startup time
Ripping Music
Ripping DVDs/editing video
multi tasking

no you won't, all vista has right now is the shinny glass looks thats about it, it's as fast or slower especially in gaming as xp, so my advice to you both stick to xp 32bit until at least sp1 is released for vista

You have to have both your hardware drivers and applications using the bonuses that a 64 bit OS supplies to see a significant performance increase. Some of the hardware drivers are there, but there are very few applications specifically written for 64 bit yet. In a year or so there should be many more apps that take advantage of 64 bit.

I got Vista 64 Premium and I am happy with it. Definately not slower than XP. Same boot speed, but comming back from hibernating is quicker and going into hibernating and shutting down seem quicker. I have also noticed it seems to do better switch between tasks.

I have a fairly new homebuilt system and have had no driver issues. Don't expect ALL software to still run on it, I had a couple programs that I used for decoding and ripping that no longer would install. I have yet to spend time finding a 64bit program for ripping and burning. My games/office 2007/surfing works and that is all I use it for so far.

I bought the 64 bit OS because Memory prices are dropping and I plan on installing another 4 gig. and using my Home PC as a Server in the background. I also didn't want to have to buy a new OS in 6-12 months when the first great Multi-Core 64bit Game/Widget comes out.

I have used a 64bit computer since 1995. The Sun Ultrasparc. I don't understand why it take so long time to get it working in windows?

Since Windows Vista 32bit only supports about 3 gig memory, I don't think it is future proof.

For gaming, 3 gig may be fine for 1-2 years? I mean: 2 gig is recommended today for Vista.

And this is one of the reasons why I hate MS.
Why can't Windows 32bit support more than 3 gig memory?

If I buy a copy of Vista for 150 dollars today:Why wants Bill another 150 dollars for upgrading from 32bit to 64bit?

And last: performence 64bit: One of the problem whit 64bit in X86, is that it is not real 64bit. It is just 64bit extentions, mostly for using memory beyond 4gig. It was a shame that AMD won and got their extentions as a standard instead of a true 64bit processor.
That is the reason why 64bit programs on PC arent that faster.

On true/pure 64bit systems, like Suns, there are a huge difference between 32bit and 64 bit version of the software. As it should.

32 to 64 should be the same as 16 to 32, but no...
All beacuse of not true 64bit, but extentions...

I just thought I'd chip in this bit: If you purchase a retail or upgrade version of 32-bit Vista, go to the microsoft website and they will send you a 64-bit version for the price of shipping ~$10. You don't have to buy 32-bit and 64-bit separately (unless you have an OEM copy).

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx

BTW, I have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista and tried them both. They appear and act pretty much identical. I didn't have any driver problems, but some programs that work on 32-bit did not work with 64-bit. In the end, I went with 32-bit until 64-bit programs come out.

Quite easy to see why.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32bit

it supports 4Gb of addressable memory anyway.....

Well, that's true it is not 64-bit, the current '64-bit Windows' systems have 64-bit addressing but only 32bit registers.

Since you only admit to being involved since 1995 you may have missed the real fun. If you had actually been involved with the 16->32 bit change you would know that it wasn't a migration at all but a complete change-over. The real change for 16->32 bits was done when Digital Research released cpm86 which was later ripped off by Seattle Computer Products as SCP86 (and bought by B. Gates - but that's another story and there are books out about it). Going from a 8080/8085/z80 to an 8088/8086 is not even similar to any of the "migrations" we've seen going from an 8088 to the quad core systems.

You do acknowledge that Itanium is still not on Vista's radar, right? Still no 'real' 64-bit Vista - all of this time it has just been a gradual update process, going from an 8088 to a L5320. 8088 code from 1979 should still run on today's quad-core systems, both Intel and AMD!!

Is it always a possibility to upgrade to 64bit later? I'd like to stay on 32 until I need to.

yes

Here are the upgrade paths:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932795/