64 - Bit Computing - What is it & Does it Matter?

What are the Benefits of 64 – bit Computing

There is still a degree of confusion in the market place as to what exactly 64 - bit computing is, where it fits in and what it is used for.

64-bit computers have been around for some time now in the mainstream, for example AMD’s Athlon and Intel’s 64 bit ready processors. Whilst these processors are 64- bit ready unless you have a 64- bit operating system they are more or less redundant as using a standard version of windows XP or Vista (both of which are 32-bit) will not allow you to access the existing power in your Pc or Cad workstation.

This is not necessarily a bad thing however as a vast majority of users for the foreseeable future will never need to use the benefit of this technology.

Essentially they have a car that has all the fittings for a turbo but only a select few will ever need to buy one.

Let us explain a little further.

32 - bit Software Programs and Operating Systems 

32-bit architectures theoretically address up to 4GB of memory. In reality, even if you have 4GB of RAM onboard and are using standard XP or Vista, you still can’t benefit from it all.

This is because in some instances your motherboard will not have been designed to utilise that much memory (see Computer Workstations) and even if it has, all of your hardware—your graphics card, your I/O cards etc. has to be mapped into that 4GB of memory space reducing the amount available to the applications (software) you use even further.

Most average users (non CAD and home users) will probably only have 1GB or less ( see how much memory do I need) in their machine and will not for the foreseeable future need to address massive amounts of ram, as the programs they use do not and often cannot use more than 1GB or 2GB of memory anyway.

Even if you have a multi-core processors and have a number of applications (programs) running together, chances are high that you will not use much more than 1 -1.5 GB of physical computer memory.

So for the average user 64 – bit computing is a bit of a white elephant and something they have no need to worry about.

The Benefit for Power Users and Cad / Digital Content Creation specialists is quite exciting and very real.

This group of users has had to suffer the inadequacies of available and affordable hardware for many years but that has and is coming to an end.

Typically these professional (and traditionally 32-bit) software applications can be compiled to "see" up to 4GB of memory, but as previously stated windows 32 - bit operating systems limits windows to use 2GB of memory for applications and 2GB for system use by default.

Some CAD applications can use 3GB of memory by utilising a 3GB switch in windows (required changing system files which is not recommended to be undertaken unless you are very IT literate), this effectively reduces reserved system memory to 1GB allowing the application to squeeze extra performance.

This can cause some instabilities when running multiple applications so should be used with caution.

A typical example of this would be for instance Autodesk’s Inventor 3D software which could take advantage of this extra GB of ram to perform much much better with larger and more complex data sets.

Many commercial applications such as Digital Content Creation (DCC), Mechanical CAD (MCAD), Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software have swiftly outgrown the 4 GB limitations, as they need to manage extremely large data sets which require access to much more (preferably) physical memory.

It may help more to explain how these applications essentially work.

Computer programs and their data are initially stored on the system’s hard disk. The program (or part of a very large program) is loaded into the system’s memory by the operating system and the program then loads its data as needed.

The operating system will swap in and out data and program code between memory and disk depending on how much memory is required by the program versus how much physical memory is available.

Ideally, the program, data, operating system kernel, and libraries will be loaded into physical memory as memory accesses are orders of magnitude faster than even today’s fastest disk drives.

Simply put the more of this data that can be stored in physical memory the better the program will perform, and time savings (sometimes upwards of an hour a day) so the return on a proper CAD computer is very justifiable indeed.

Related Topics

CAD Computers

What are the advantages of 64 – bit operating systems?

What are the benefit of multi-core processors? (coming soon)

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