I am planning to install WinXP Professional 64-bit on my PC to feel the differences and learn the setup knowledge behind. So grateful if anyone could give me information on my queries below:

1. I know it depends on the CPU. My CPU is Intel Pentium D 805. Is it capable of running it?
2. Any specify type of RAM to support it? I have got a pair of Corsair 512 MB DDR2 667
3. Any other hardware components I need to make sure the capatability?
3. Of course the OS is 64-bit. What about other applications like Office, most of the 3 D games? Do they need to be specially designed for 64-bit platform before I can use it?
4. Is 64-bit means higher colour depth? More efficient executing of application? Faster video rendering or converting?

Below is my PC spec?

Intel P4 D 805 2.66 GHz
ASUS P5LD2 945P board
Corsair 512 MB x 2 DDR2 667 RAM
Inno GF 6800 XT display card
Maxtor 200 GB harddisk

Thanks a lot !

I am an amature computer builder so I might not be correct on everything.

Running a 64bit OS depends of whether you CPU is 32bit or 64bit and driver support. I'm pretty sure your's is capable of running a 64bit OS, but I could be wrong.

64bit has nothing to do with color depth. Windows XP 64bit is just a version of Windows XP that was designed to take advantage of 64bit hardware. But as far as I know, you will only see a significant difference in speed if you are running a 64bit application, otherwise the speed will be more or less the same. The main problem with performance that I have seen is on the driver side. Often, the 64bit drivers may be, for some reason, slower than that of the 32bit OS's. This is true for graphics cards, so you may lose a few frames per second on 64bit drivers.

While on the subject of drivers, as long as all you hardware has compatable 64bit drivers (often found on the manufactuer's site) you should be fine with XP 64bit.

Any 32bit (normal) program will be compatable with WinXP 64. The only programs that aren't are old 16bit programs.

About games/apps, like I previously said, you will only see a difference in speed if you are using a program has a 64bit executable. A lot of the time, the developer of the program may have released a 64bit "patch" which would replace the standard 32bit executable and some other files with the updated 64bit versions. An example is the game FarCry, which has undergone a rediculous amount of changes, including a new 64bit patch.

One thing that doesn't work in XP64 are the shell extensions for 32bit programs. An example would be WinRar. WinRar, as you may know, uses shell extensions to quickly extract and compress data into rar files with just a right-click, and a menu option. That right-click/menu option thing wouldn't work in XP64 due to the lack of support for 32bit shell extensions.

If you want more info go here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...loringx64.mspx

If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

__________________
If you have any questions you can email me at zack[ d o t ]schmid( a t )gmail[ d o t ]com.

Yeah, the Pentium D is two Prescott Cores sewn together, so it inherits EM64T (Extended Memory 64 Technology), Intel's name for the x86-64 extensions.

In addition to what Schmidget said, 32-bit applications must run on the WoW32 (Windows on Windows 32) emulator in Windows XP x64 Edition. This is automatic whenever you launch a 32-bit executable, but has slight overhead. This means pure 32-bit applications will inherently suffer a slight performance loss for their processing, albeit neglidgable. Far Cry 64-bit is even more buggy than the latest 32-bit patch. It's really not the best example :/.

To clarify, Windows XP x64 can only use 64-bit drivers. This means you need to make sure that all the manufacturers of your hardware have 64-bit drivers. Many will still have only beta drivers, if this is the case, use them at your peril.

I have personally evaluated Windows XP x64 some months ago, and found it to be unsuitable for new users. There are too few precautionary checks against doing foolish things, such as installing 32-bit drivers. It offers only minor, trivial advantages over 32-bit Windows XP, in all but situations where running 64-bit software is necessary; hence why there is only a Professional edition.

Marvellous comments!!

I am giving up this plan now as I want to do something more meanful instead.

Cheers mates!