64 bit

Parsec · 2 Nov 2007 at 00:33

I was reading an article about Leopard benchmarking the other day and they compared Tiger, Leopard 32bit and Leopard 64bit.

This lead me to wonder - does Leopard automatically install the 64bit version if your hardware supports it or do you choose what you want?

Both versions must be on the install DVD right?

Will_3rd · 2 Nov 2007 at 00:35

if your chipset and cpu support it I'm sure it will install the correct version

LordSplodge · 2 Nov 2007 at 10:15

Aren't all recent Apples 64bit? I know the Intel ones are but aren't the G5/4's as well?

Will_3rd · 2 Nov 2007 at 10:22

LordSplodge said:
Aren't all recent Apples 64bit? I know the Intel ones are but aren't the G5/4's as well?

The first gen of Intel stuff was 32bit i.e. Core Duo, the G4's are 32bit as well. The G5's are 64 bit.

But I've read that the chipsets on the early Core 2 Duo Macs aren't 64bit compatible.

LordSplodge · 2 Nov 2007 at 11:59

Will_3rd said:
The first gen of Intel stuff was 32bit i.e. Core Duo, the G4's are 32bit as well. The G5's are 64 bit.

But I've read that the chipsets on the early Core 2 Duo Macs aren't 64bit compatible.

Core Duos are 32bit? Man, that blows...

Also, how do you know if your Core 2 Duo chipset is not 64bit compatible?

Will_3rd · 2 Nov 2007 at 12:03

LordSplodge said:
Core Duos are 32bit? Man, that blows...

Also, how do you know if your Core 2 Duo chipset is not 64bit compatible?

If your Mac supports 4GBs worth of RAM and see it all it should be 64 bit.

Also I think it is related to the mobile 945P chipset they used in early models, probably will require more research though.

Founder_film · 2 Nov 2007 at 13:30

I haven't installed Leopard on my G5 yet, do you guys think I will see a performance increase with it being 64bit?

J1234 · 2 Nov 2007 at 13:33

Founder_film said:
I haven't installed Leopard on my G5 yet, do you guys think I will see a performance increase with it being 64bit?

a lot of people have said it increases the performance on the old PPC Macs.

LordSplodge · 2 Nov 2007 at 14:42

Will_3rd said:
If your Mac supports 4GBs worth of RAM and see it all it should be 64 bit.

Also I think it is related to the mobile 945P chipset they used in early models, probably will require more research though.

Don't think I'll cram 4GB into my MacBook. It's new anyway and Leopard flies...

E1mo · 2 Nov 2007 at 15:25

I've seen a performance increase running Mathematica with a 64-bit Math Kernel ontop of the 32-bit interface. Large Integer calculations are blazingly quick.

You'll probably see a moderate increase in performance even in basic apps on Intel 64-bit because of the increased number of registers on the CPU that can be utilised. Apparently PPC 64-bit isn't the same though; 64-bit just uses more memory bandwidth, slows everything down.

In conclusion, only science and photoshop users are going to get a lot out of 64-bit.

J1234 · 2 Nov 2007 at 16:40

E1mo said:
In conclusion, only science and photoshop users are going to get a lot out of 64-bit.

You're right about that, CS3 runs a lot faster on Leopard than it did on Tiger :cool:

E1mo · 2 Nov 2007 at 16:52

I don't think Photoshop is compiled for 64-bit actually! I would expect that CS4 will be fully 64-bit.

"The Snappy" must be coming from somewhere else

MagicBoy · 2 Nov 2007 at 17:40

LordSplodge said:
Core Duos are 32bit? Man, that blows...

Doesn't bother me. Knew when I bought it, had it over 18 months. It's not really important - if and when it becomes so then I'll go get the latest MBP with 16Gb of RAM and a Core4 6Ghz quad.

64-bit isn't the holy grail for MacOS otherwise they'd have done it in Tiger for the G5 users. It's very unlike the change from 16-bit to 32-bit apps in Windows where they needed the extra facilities on the CPU to make the OS more stable.

64-bit can address more memory and do clever stuff with really big numbers but the code is bloatier so less data can be stored in cache. Swings and roundabouts...

Parsec said:
Both versions must be on the install DVD right?

No such thing as a 64-bit version of Leopard - you're thinking in a narrow tunnel vision Windows way.

64-bit apps are just an extension to universal binaries - so they'll just add 64-bit G5 and 64-bit x86 versions to the existing 32-bit PowerPC and 32-bit x86 versions. Maybe they should rename them Fat Universal Binaries?

Logsi · 2 Nov 2007 at 18:10

I hope my MBP 2.33ghz is running 64bit! :mad:

I'm gonna sell it when the new MBP's are out i think!

Josh

theheyes · 2 Nov 2007 at 18:39

"Supports 4GB of RAM" doesnt necesarily indicate a 64bit cpu. A lot of the Macs only support 3GB yet have 64bit chips.

Logsi · 3 Nov 2007 at 02:36

theheyes said:
"Supports 4GB of RAM" doesnt necesarily indicate a 64bit cpu. A lot of the Macs only support 3GB yet have 64bit chips.

Supposedly the chips are 64bit but the chipset isn't. I'd be highly surprised if it wasn't.

Josh

Beepcake · 3 Nov 2007 at 07:42

It's easy to tell. Open Finder, go into Applications, find Chess, right click and choose Get Info. If you have a Open in 32Bit Mode option then you are running 64Bit.

32Bit:

64Bit:

I disagree that it makes no difference. The speed increase from Leopard, certainly when running things like VMWare in the background is much more noticeable on my 64bit Core2 machines than it is on my 32bit CoreDuo machines (same RAM etc.)

My MBP and iMac both only support 3gig of RAM and run 64bit; I'm not quite sure where the 3gig 32bit thing has come from.

unknowndomain · 3 Nov 2007 at 11:56

Lol Windows.... Windows XP only supports 3GB of memory dispite being a 32bit OS which should allow 4GB, Windows Vista in 32bit flavor supports 4GB and Vista 64 presumably more, how much i do not know. 8x? maby 64GB of memory?

PardonTheWait · 3 Nov 2007 at 12:08

Beepcake said:
It's easy to tell. Open Finder, go into Applications, find Chess, right click and choose Get Info. If you have a Open in 32Bit Mode option then you are running 64Bit.

So that means my C2D Macbook is 64 bit? Never knew that. Posh.

unknowndomain · 3 Nov 2007 at 12:11

afaik c2d = 64bit