Windows Vista - 32-bit or 64-bit

Question

Hi all,
I'm building a new machine and I'll be installing everything from scratch. LR is pretty much the only heavy-weight program I use and the main reason for getting a new machine.
I'm wondering if LR would work better in 32-bit or 64-bit Vista? I know the 64-bit version would have higher memory limits available but in terms of computational power would there be a difference. I'd think not but I'd don't know that for a fact.
Thanks,
Nick

Answer 1

Nick,
Over the past 6 months I went from XP32-bit to Vista 64-bit, same machine with a fresh install.  I had the xp "switch" turned on to allow around 3.2GB memory of the 4GB installed.  The speed increase going to Vista 64 was close to double in most of the LR functions.  It is ABSOLUTELY worth migrating to 64-bit.
In the end though, my single core, hyperthreaded processor still would not allow me to use the adjustment brush since it basically goes to 100% utilization and stays there for 10 seconds for each small stroke and created streaks across the page when moving to turn the brush off.  I basically did not use it at all.  Thus, when I built my new machine a couple of weeks ago I decided to try Windows7.  Love it for LR.
So ... in my opinion you definitely want to go to 64-bit and Windows7.  The Windows7 has all the feel of Vista64 with (in my case) none of the conflicts, etc.  Four cores and 8GB of memory would also be my suggested minimum.
Hope this helps.
Jeff