64-bit vs. 32-bit Windows
Windows XP Professional x64 edition is clearly not a mainstream product. For example, though you can order Dell Dimension XPS models with XP X64 installed, Dell gives you this rather dire warning when you try to buy a system with the OS installed:
"Peripherals you currently own or plan to purchase in the near future (cameras, printers, MP3 players, handheld devices) will most likely NOT work on a system purchased with Windows XP Professional x64, and some software applications may not work on the x64 operating system."
Even given this bleak message, we're still interested in 64-bit Windows XP, particularly for content creation applications and gaming. But we're also interested in the impact of running 32-bit applications on Windows XP Pro x64.
For this first installation of a two-part series investigating the performance of 64-bit Windows, we loaded up a test system with 2GB of RAM, an Athlon 64 X2 4800+, and a bunch of applications and benchmarks in both 64- and 32-bit flavors. The focus here is on how 64-bit Windows compares with the now venerable 32-bit Windows XP. Next week, we'll compare how the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and Intel Pentium 840 Extreme Edition with EM64T architectures, both dual core, perform relative to each other on Windows XP Pro x64 edition.
