PC Tips for Choosing Vista 32 Bit or 64 Bit

One of the more common questions I hear about Vista is which bit version of Windows should one get. Do we go with x86 32 bit edition or x64 64 bit edition? I’m going to try to clear that question up as best as I can and explain the pros and cons of each choice.

First we must understand a little background on what x64 is. X64 is the 64 bit extension technology that AMD invented (AMD64) to seamlessly migrate the 32 bit x86 (as in 286, 386, 486 compatible microprocessors) world into a 64 bit era. Intel in partnership with HP had refused to extend the ancient x86 platform and had already committed to its all new pure 64 bit IA-64 Itanium architecture.

While Itanium was fundamentally superior, its x86 emulation provided inferior performance for existing applications and the adoption rate was very slow. Intel had hoped that the market would leap to the new platform but there was no seamless way of making that migration, and Itanium failed to gain widespread adoption.

AMD took the opportunity to extend the existing x86 architecture with 64 bit capability by handling 64 bit CPU registers and adding a lot more registers, and it was immediately greeted warmly by the market. In a reversal of roles, Intel found itself copying AMD64 (permitted by an AMD-Intel cross-licensing agreement) and calling it EM64T.