[E. Pluribus Unum]

My next home PC will be a AMD 64-bit with PCI-Express and XP 64-bit.

Bigger, faster, stronger is always better, but other than on a server, what advantage is 64-bit for the foreseeable future?

[CyberCowboy777]

64-bit games at home

In a production environment - VMs

[stylin_geek]

Advantage? Heck, for computer people it is like saying they've bought the latest Mercedes. Status, baby, status.

[HEY4QDEMS]

what advantage is 64-bit for the foreseeable future

Clent server apps is a biggie, SQL, Oracle, SAP etc..

[CyberCowboy777]

I should say that the eventual move will be due to a combination of factors not just pure 64-bit in nature but the entire shakeup in new systems, including the core 64-bit advancements, bus performance (including SCSI and SATA), video performance, memory size increases and performance.

For all these reason though - gamers will be moving much quicker and with more enthusiasm.

[NJ_gent]

"what advantage is 64-bit for the foreseeable future?"

Extra registers for one thing - x86 is register-starved. If you're looking for more general conceptual benefits, we could start with all those workstation applications and developer applications that could benefit from the memory addressing of AMD64. Rendering applications will be able to take on far more complex tasks with off-the-shelf hardware, and developers looking to run realistic tests don't have to wait for their clunky desktop with 1GB of RAM to crunch through a 10GB database. Essentially, there's no benefits for grandma, but for those hitting the upper edges of x86-32, this is a godsend.

[tortoise]

Bigger, faster, stronger is always better, but other than on a server, what advantage is 64-bit for the foreseeable future?

Just about anything that works on a lot of data e.g. workstations of all sorts. Also, media processing can make good use of it as well, and it greatly simplifies filesystem and memory models. I've needed 64-bit for my software development work for a few years now.