32 or 64 bit.. That is the question.

[stratcat]

Found Dell 4600 series in garbage and it works. Has xp pro, but it also has 2.8 gig pentium 4, and can address up to 4 gig of ram. I'm sure I can install Win 7 if I max out the memory. My question is which would run better on this machine, 32 or 64 bit os?

 

[Nick_50]

That is a 32bit CPU so don't think 64 bit OS will work.

http://ark.intel.com/products/27447/Intel-Pentium-4-Processor-2_80-GHz-512K-Cache-533-MHz-FSB

 

[stratcat]

That is a 32bit CPU so don't think 64 bit OS will work.

http://ark.intel.com/products/27447/Intel-Pentium-4-Processor-2_80-GHz-512K-Cache-533-MHz-FSB

Thank you Nick 50 for your quick precise answer. I didn't realize that the older P4's were restricted to 32 bit.

 

[bwrlane]

It's not so much that they were restricted to 32 bit. Just that 64 bit hadn't yet launched.

Right at the end of the pentium 4's life, some 64 bit chips were launched but these were few in number and didn't sell well. AMD stole a march over Intel in the early race to 64 bit. Bless them.

More here: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/the-new-64-bit-pentium-4-processor/

All the 64 bit models were 3GHz plus so your 2.8GHz model is most certainly a 32 bit model.

 

[stratcat]

It's not so much that they were restricted to 32 bit. Just that 64 bit hadn't yet launched.

Right at the end of the pentium 4's life, some 64 bit chips were launched but these were few in number and didn't sell well. AMD stole a march over Intel in the early race to 64 bit. Bless them.

More here: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/the-new-64-bit-pentium-4-processor/

All the 64 bit models were 3GHz plus so your 2.8GHz model is most certainly a 32 bit model.

I appreciate your reply. I meant to say that the technology wasn't available yet. But more interestingly, I remember a few years ago that AMD was outdoing Intel. Now I know the reason. Thank you for that info.