64 bit...should i bother?

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

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

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 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.

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!!

yes