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From: becko BECKO on 12 Mar 2010 07:12
I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I can't think of any better. Would I gain some performance with Mathematica if I installed 64bit windows 7? I have a quad-processor, but only 2 gb ram, so I am not sure. Thanks.


From: David Park on 13 Mar 2010 08:00
I believe you would only get an advantage if you also got extra ram and
actually used it. The speed performance might be slightly worse because the
processors are doing slightly more work to compute addresses. (You might get
better expert advice on this.)


David Park
djmpark(a)comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/


From: becko BECKO [mailto:becko565(a)hotmail.com]

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I can't think of
any better. Would I gain some performance with Mathematica if I installed
64bit windows 7? I have a quad-processor, but only 2 gb ram, so I am not
sure. Thanks.




From: David Bailey on 13 Mar 2010 08:09
becko BECKO wrote:
> I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I can't think of any better. Would I gain some performance with Mathematica if I installed 64bit windows 7? I have a quad-processor, but only 2 gb ram, so I am not sure. Thanks.
>
>
The big advantage of 64-bit Windows, is that it has an enormous virtual
address space of approx 1.8 x 10^19 bytes, unlike 32-bit windows, which
has a theoretical maximum address space of approx 4 x 10^9. In practice,
this means that memory can be used more effectively.

The Windows version of Mathematica has both 32 and 64 bit versions
within it, so after switching to 64-bit Windows, you would only need to
re-use your existing install disk.

Of course, the real gains from 64-bits come when you install more
memory, which can be exploited in 64-bit mode by a single hungry
application, whereas in 32-bit mode each process reaches a limit as to
how much memory it can use.

Although the address space limit in 32-bit mode is 4 x 10^9, in practice
the limit is much lower. This is because the operating system itself
uses up part of this address space, and also the address space tends to
become fragmented.

I think it would probably be worth a try, but why not install some more
RAM, then the choice would be obvious!

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk

From: divisor on 15 Mar 2010 06:02
Hello becko:

1) you can only install 64-bit Windoze if you have 4GB (or more).
2) I recently started running this OS with 6GB. All of my older
examples which used a lot of memory (for graphics or imported data)
run much faster now.
3) the best improvement is that File-Saves which occasionaly were
interminable (sic?) are now completed in a reasonable (if not short)
period of time.

I will probably go to 8GB soon.

Roger Williams
Franklin Laboratory
http://www.youtube.com/CongruentLight


On Mar 12, 5:12 am, becko BECKO <becko...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I can't think of any better. Would I gain some performance with Mathematica if I installed 64bit windows 7? I have a quad-processor, but only 2 gb ram, so I am not sure. Thanks.


From: David Bailey on 15 Mar 2010 08:04
divisor wrote:
> Hello becko:
>
> 1) you can only install 64-bit Windoze if you have 4GB (or more).
> 2) I recently started running this OS with 6GB. All of my older
> examples which used a lot of memory (for graphics or imported data)
> run much faster now.
> 3) the best improvement is that File-Saves which occasionaly were
> interminable (sic?) are now completed in a reasonable (if not short)
> period of time.
>
> I will probably go to 8GB soon.
>
> Roger Williams
> Franklin Laboratory
> http://www.youtube.com/CongruentLight
>
>
> On Mar 12, 5:12 am, becko BECKO <becko...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I can't think of any better. Would I gain some performance with Mathematica if I installed 64bit windows 7? I have a quad-processor, but only 2 gb ram, so I am not sure. Thanks.
>
>
This statement is certainly not true of Windows XP-64. I have run it on
1GB or RAM quite successfully. Indeed, that is Microsoft's stated
minimum requirement:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306856

Have you confused RAM requirements with hard disk usage perhaps?

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk

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