Is there any interest in moving from a 32 to 64 bit OS

Every year a number of articles appear on the migration from a 32 bit system to another 63 bit one. In this article, we wanted to avoid the “tedious” technical details, instead focusing on the options made available to everyone. Nevertheless, for those that like the numbers, performance tests are often presented around the Web. Each has their own advice depending on the needs and hardware configuration, so if you look you will find!
What is a 64 bit OS? What significant changes does this offer? Will you be impacted by an eventual migration? What software can be used? Are there incompatibilities? These are some of the questions being asked by internet users, gamers and novice users that have a double processor or Quad-cores with more then 3 GB of RAM.

What is 64 bit architecture?
You certainly know the 32 bit Intel processor (x86) which first appeared with the 80386 (1985) and 80486 (1989), followed by the 32/64 bit architecture with the Pentium (1993), Pentium II (1997), Pentium III (1999) and the Pentium 4C and D (2000 and 2004). 2006 saw a change as we migrated to a lager data bus in full 64 bits (x64) with the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors (2007).

At the competing AMD, the passage to the 64 bit architecture started a lot earlier then Intel in 2003 with the Athlon 64. Total support was made available with the AMD64 and in 2006 with the AMD Opteron (Quad cores). For more detailed historical information don’t hesitate looking in Wikipedia for x86 to x64 for the Intel processors, and the Athlon64 and AMD64.

The 64 bit microprocessors are a logical evolution from the previous 32 bit versions. In the past and up to today, all hardware evolutions were accompanied by adapted operating systems. The 16 bit processors were coupled with MS-DOS and Windows 3.1, while a 16/32 bit architecture was used on Windows 95/98 systems. Windows XP/Vista supports both 32 and 64 bit hardware, but where things really change is in that todays processors are a lot more powerful in native 64 bits. This is the case with Core 2 Duo and the whole range of AMD64 processors. Thanks to this, exploiting an OS in 32 bits is actually under utilizing the processors potential and consequently all of the linked peripheral devices. The question that has to be asked then is should I move to a “full” 64 bit OS?