Windows 7 64-bit slower than 32-bit?

[Phenom II]

Windows 7 x64 feels snappier to me, but if you have 4GB RAM + you will need x64 anyway and because of the increase of RAM the performance should be better

[Billus]

Say wha? Windows 7 64 bit is heaps faster than 32 bit. Seeing that your RAM is 4gb and in double channel, it probably is correct to say 5.9. What's its speed and timings? Is it generic ram?

It could be possible that since your ram was maxed out in x32, it would give a higher score. Adding more ram would actually be beneficial seeing that you are running x64 which consumes more resources but benefits from having much more ram to play with. My ram is rated 7.9 btw.

[Pharos]

Theoretically, for those who have a Core 2 Duo, 32-bit would be faster (for some 32-bit operations) because of a CPU feature called Micro-op fusion (or something like that :p ) that is not available under a 64-bit OS. Supposedly this feature makes some operations in the CPU more efficient, thus improving performance. There's no real world perceivable difference, though, IMHO... I guess it's all a placebo effect, or some driver problem.

[+SOOPRcow MVC]

I'm guessing the reason you got a higher ram score on the 32bit is because you had the max Windows 7 32bit can hold. On the 64bit version you dont :)

[sjms]

how many 64bit apps do you all have/use? i'll bet not many. on mine its approx 5. and these five are Adobe PS CS4 64bit and a rest are native 64bit plug-ins and there satellite programs. and it is a fast program under its native OS. well there is this little part of Win 64 called WOW. it is the 32bit emulation subsystem within Win64 that allows you to run 32bit apps on the 64bit platform. if you put a whole bunch of 32bit apps on a 64 bit OS none are truely running natively. its all emulation. and yes they will be slower on that platform vs running on their native 32bit OS

[McDave]

Kev1n the proformance index scores are more of a guide. Just incase you are confused when we say the proformance of 64bit is slower for 32bit applications, really with the power of todays systems any differances is negligible and you won't notice it.

It's just jibber jabber really. 4GB of RAM requires 64bit so stick with that. Also you get the added advantage of extra security through hardware-backed DEP, Kernel Patch Protection and mandatory driver signing.

[hdood]

It's just jibber jabber really. 4GB of RAM requires 64bit so stick with that. Also you get the added advantage of extra security through hardware-backed DEP, Kernel Patch Protection and mandatory driver signing.

32-bit has DEP as well, KPP isn't a security feature (and you've probably never encountered it), and forced driver signing is an annoyance for hobbyists!

Yes, I still run 64-bit. No, it doesn't feel slow.

[McDave]

32-bit has DEP as well, KPP isn't a security feature (and you've probably never encountered it), and forced driver signing is an annoyance for hobbyists!

Not 100% but is DEP on 32bit is software based vs 64bit being hardware. Either way it's genrally accepted as an advantage.

Agreed I have never encountered KPP. "protects code and critical structures in the Windows kernel from modification" (microsoft.com) sounds like a form of Secuirty to me.

[hdood]

Not 100% but is DEP on 32bit is software based vs 64bit being hardware. Either way it's genrally accepted as an advantage.

I think you might be confusing two different things here. "Software DEP" is a silly name for safe structured exception handling, whereas "hardware DEP" is a name for the NX bit hardware feature (used to specify whether a certain page of memory can contain executable code). These are actually entirely unrelated features despite the name, and are both are available on both 32-bit and 64-bit (provided the hardware supports it, which it has for years.)

Agreed I have never encountered KPP. "protects code and critical structures in the Windows kernel from modification" (microsoft.com) sounds like a form of Secuirty to me.

That quote is misleading. KPP does one single thing, and that is to bluescreen the machine if it detects that certain internal OS structures have been modified. In other words, it gives you a BSOD after something has been changed, not before. The actual purpose of it is to prevent authors of legitimate software from creating dependencies on internal OS structures that they have no business going near. When developers do this, Microsoft can't make internal changes to Windows without making third-party software stop working. That's not good. It can also cause reliability issues by making the OS crash. On 64-bit, they can no longer do this, and since 64-bit has had it since the start, they don't even try. It would have been technically possible to do it on 32-bit as well, but it was decided not to because it caused major compatibility problems. It's somewhat ironic that the main class of software that does this is antivirus/security software, not malware. If actual malware wanted to do something, it could simply patch files on disk to disable KPP or make any other changes it wanted to the system.

[Kev1n]

Say wha? Windows 7 64 bit is heaps faster than 32 bit. Seeing that your RAM is 4gb and in double channel, it probably is correct to say 5.9. What's its speed and timings? Is it generic ram?

It could be possible that since your ram was maxed out in x32, it would give a higher score. Adding more ram would actually be beneficial seeing that you are running x64 which consumes more resources but benefits from having much more ram to play with. My ram is rated 7.9 btw.

I'm using two sticks of the Kingston 2GB 1333MHz DDR3 CL 9 RAM.

I'm guessing the reason you got a higher ram score on the 32bit is because you had the max Windows 7 32bit can hold. On the 64bit version you dont :)

I see. But I'm told by my friend that he did the same thing (moved from 32-bit to 64-bit) and his RAM score remained the same. He also has 4GB of RAM.

[Hani]

I'm going to try 32-bit to see if it runs any better on my laptop. Quick question, I have 4GB of RAM. How much ram would I be losing if I downgrade to 32-bit?

[Kev1n]

When I had the 32-bit Win7 installed, only 3GB out of 4 was usable.

[+devHead Subscriber²]

For me, the x64 versions of Vista and 7 seemed more responsive than their 32-bit counterparts.

Just as a reference, Kev1n, I have 4 GB of Crucial DDR2 1066 RAM, and my memory WEI score is 7.1. And that's with an AMD 7850 Black 2.8 GHz dual-core CPU.

[Julius Caro]

There should be a speed increce between Windows x32 to x64.

When running x32bit apps on Win x64 however it runs them with "wow" (Windows on Windows) that actually degrades the proformance compared to if the application was run on x32bit Windows alone.

Not necessarily. The same code is ran by the processor. If anything, if they libraries arent loaded by the time a 32-bit app requires them, then sure. But I think the 32-bit libraries are always 'on memory' too.

how many 64bit apps do you all have/use? i'll bet not many. on mine its approx 5. and these five are Adobe PS CS4 64bit and a rest are native 64bit plug-ins and there satellite programs. and it is a fast program under its native OS. well there is this little part of Win 64 called WOW. it is the 32bit emulation subsystem within Win64 that allows you to run 32bit apps on the 64bit platform. if you put a whole bunch of 32bit apps on a 64 bit OS none are truely running natively. its all emulation. and yes they will be slower on that platform vs running on their native 32bit OS

It's not emulation. The 64-bit instruction set is just a superset of the 32-bit one, if I remember correctly. I think it just ditches the legacy 16-bit support. OS-wise, it's not emulation either, just the need for additional libraries. Which are probably always on memory if people are only installing windows x64 with over 4GB.

A 64-bit CPU IMPLIES the 32-bit support. No emulation. And I dont think it is correct to call WoW emulation per se.

[hdood]

It's not emulation. The 64-bit instruction set is just a superset of the 32-bit one, if I remember correctly. I think it just ditches the legacy 16-bit support.

They still support 16-bit, with certain limitations. It's not supported by Windows though.

OS-wise, it's not emulation either, just the need for additional libraries. Which are probably always on memory if people are only installing windows x64 with over 4GB.

A 64-bit CPU IMPLIES the 32-bit support. No emulation. And I dont think it is correct to call WoW emulation per se.

It's more complex than just "additional libraries." WOW emulates the 32-bit kernel, the 32-bit Windows environment, the 32-bit registry, and the 32-bit file system. This is why it's fine to call it an emulator. In fact, that's what Microsoft calls it. It's just a word.

People get too hung up on the fact that AMD64 CPUs can switch to 32-bit compatibility mode (technically not free), and forget that you also have to emulate the 32-bit Windows environment. The overhead is not huge, although it is measurable. You are not likely to find a 32-bit program that performs better under WOW than it does on the native 32-bit OS. Does it really matter? No. For the most part the difference is marginal. It's also not that constructive to look at it isolated. You should look at the bigger picture where 64-bit does offer advantages.

[Hani]

When I had the 32-bit Win7 installed, only 3GB out of 4 was usable.

I've read that it uses 3.25GB. However, since x64 uses more RAM than 64bit, how much would I be really losing? About 500mb?

[majortom1981]

Seems like a driver problem. I have 4 gigs of ddr3 ram in my machine that i am typing on with windows 7 64bit and I get a score of 7.2 for the ram.

[Kev1n]

I've read that it uses 3.25GB. However, since x64 uses more RAM than 64bit, how much would I be really losing? About 500mb?

I really do not know. Noob here. :laugh:

Seems like a driver problem. I have 4 gigs of ddr3 ram in my machine that i am typing on with windows 7 64bit and I get a score of 7.2 for the ram.

I already updated the drivers for my mobo and graphics card, what other drivers are there that could affect the RAM? The only one I can think of is the motherboard drivers.

From my motherboard (Asus P7H55-M) support page, these are the drivers available (description in brackets):

BIOS (2) [bIOS History] (Fix certain profiles of TurboV ("Performance","Superior","Ultimate") and Turbo key can't function normally.)

BIOS Utilities (Flash BIOS tool under DOS.)

Chipset (Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility V9.1.1.1025 for 32/64bit Windows XP & Windows Vista & Windows 7.(WHQL) )

Audio

VGA (Intel Corporation Graphics Driver V8.15.10.1995 for 32/64bit Windows Vista & Windows 7.(WHQL))

LAN

Utilities - 15 of them

SATA (Intel® Matrix Storage Manager Driver V8.9.0.1023 for Windows 32/64bit XP & Windows 32/64bit Vista & 32/64bit Windows 7.(WHQL) )

Which of these should I reinstall?

[Kev1n]

Guess what, I erased the old test results and did a new test. RAM was still at 5.9, and the graphics tests dropped from 7.4 to 6.9. :pinch:

I installed a couple of games, downloaded some software (Firefox, iTunes, uTorrent, Live Messenger, WinRAR, etc), transferred my old files from my external drive to a secondary partition on my current desktop, and I dont know how any of these can affect my graphics performance.

[Growled Member]

I really can't tell that much difference between the two.

[PGHammer]

So, at the moment, which is the better choice?

Take those WEI numbers (especially those for RAM) with a large saltmine.

x64 gets my vote over x32 for safety and security reasons, not *just* performance. Because of Windows on Windows (standard fare for 32-bit apps running on x64 Windows), a misbehaving 32-bit application doesn't bring the whole OS to a halt. (Browser plugins, especially Flash as of late, are the biggest cause of browser-tab misbehavior.)

I have moved friends and relatives to x64 with as little as 512 MB of RAM, and so far, none of them have asked to go back. (Two have, in fact, bought x64 prtables to go along with their x64 desktops.)

[jasondefaoite]

I've read that it uses 3.25GB. However, since x64 uses more RAM than 64bit, how much would I be really losing? About 500mb?

x64 is 64bit.

'Normally' a 32bit system can address a total of 4GB of memory. However this includes the graphics card memory.

x64 gets my vote over x32 for safety and security reasons, not *just* performance

Spot on!

[Udedenkz]

32-bit games are ~2% slower through WOW

[neo158]

32-bit games are ~2% slower through WOW

wow, a whole 2% slower, lol. Not really going to notice it though are you.

[Hani]

I've downgraded to 32-bit. No significant difference at all. Going back to 64-bit asap, to make full use of my 4GB (as 32-bit uses only 3GB, and doesn't use less memory).