64 bits question

[Tester]

Hi there,
If I have a dual core 64 bits processor and motherboard, AMD 5200 x2 64
processor, would I still benefit of faster speed, memory access on my
windows XP home 32 bits machine for my applications like video capture(Ulead
Visual Studio 9, Power Director 5) or I need to purchase a 64 bits operating
system to take advantage of that?
Thanks a lot, Calin

 

[Shaun]

Most certainly.

 

[James McIninch]

Yes and no. Dual-core will have a bigger influence on performance than
64-bits for the 32-bit OS. However, the 32-bit OS will see a little boost
from the additional registers.

That said, you won't see the best performance without a 64-bit version of
the OS. But with Windows, you have the issue that their 64-bit products
(particularly XP) are largely ignored or poorly supported by hardware
vendors. Ergo, you can have some hardware support issues.