Thread: New PC -- 64 bit or not?
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Old 03-05-2004, 22:55   #1
Tristan
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New PC -- 64 bit or not?
Over the next month or two I will be buying components to build myself a new PC. I've already decided on the majority of things I want, and it's just a matter of finding the best prices, but there's one sticking point I'm still not quite decided on; do I want a nice, fast, 32-bit Athlon, or a shiny new 64-bit Athlon?

I've read that, at present, there is not much speed advantage for the Athlon 64. Is this likely to change when XP64 is released? Are games and so forth likely to have special routines that allow them to take advantage of the extra processing power?

Also, for the Linux gurus, how do the AMD64 distributions compare to the regular x86 variety? Can they run all x86 software without any problems? I need to use Linux for Uni work (specifically, Matlab and LaTeX), and I want to make sure it'll all work okay.

In short, should I go for 64-bit, or not? I want your opinions! Thanks in advance,

Tristan
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