Does running 64bit win server OS have any benifit

I am interested in experienced users opinions.....We have at work 64bit windows xp clients for our CAD dept but our file server with CAD data mostly 3D solid models is running windows server 2003 std R2 32bit.

My boss asked our out sourced IT guy if making the server os 64bit would help with our performance problems. Is there any possible improvement doing this. They said no....I think they are wrong.... as they had nothing to back up this claim. Any comments?

I hope its ok to post this here?

Cheers

Phil

 

It even may do things worse (with the same amount of RAM) as your 32-bit CAD will operate a bit slower on a 64-bit platform because the OS will have to create 32-bit environment for your 32-bit CAD.
64-bit CAD on 64-bit would be a better solution...

...look here:

"keep in mind that 32-bit applications work a bit slower under the 64-bit Windows than in the 32-bit environment. "

http://www.viva64.com/lessons-x64/02_Support_of_32-bit_applications.html

 

benefits of 64 bit OS

Migrating to a 64 bit OS will definitely help in performance/stability. A 32 bit OS has a total virtual address space (VAS) of 4 GB (I would like to stress on VIRTUAL here) this has nothing to do with physical memory or the Page file. please note that virtual address space is different from page file.
The VAS is divided into 2 equal chunks - User mode VAS and kernel mode VAS. (2 GB each). All the user mode applications like SQL, Exchange, MS office, CAD software etc. runs in the user mode portion and can call the kernel mode components if required through ntdll.dll (the default entry point to the kernel) user mode processes cannot access the kernel mode components directly for security reasons. In the kernel address space we have the kernel resources like non paged pool, paged pool, system PTEs, the kernel itself, HAL, system cache etc. We frequently run into resource depletion issues on a 32 bit OS because the kernel address space is limited to 2 GB (without the /3GB switch in Boot.ini file. if we have the /3GB in boot.ini it further decreases to 1 GB). so as you can see the kernel resources can get cramped up on a 32 bit OS, and these kernel resources are VITAL for the OS performance, if a user mode app fails, only the processes related to the specific app stops functioning, on the other hand if we run out of kernel resources, the system might bug-check (BSOD), hard hang, unexpectedly reboot etc. Now the HUGE benefit that we have with 64 bit architecture is that -- the virtual address space is 16 Terrabyte !! (instead of 4 GB in a 32 bit OS) -- 8 TB for user mode and 8 TB for kernel, so theoritically you will never see a resource crunch on a 64 bit OS. The user mode apps also benefits in a 64 bit OS provided its a large address aware application, means if it can make use of more than 2 GB of user mode virtual address space (example of large address aware apps: SQL, Exchange, 2007 etc.) From an OS stability/Performance perspective you will definitely benifit from 64 bit OS, if you have a large address aware app running on top of it, then you definitely need it.
32 bit apps running on 64 bit platform makes use of WOW (windows on windows) -- Hope this answers your question -- Madhurjya

 

To answer your direct question -- upgrading the server to 64bit will likely yield a performance increase. Not huge, but some . I did some benchmark testing on the same server, using WIndows 2003 server 32 bit and 64 bit, and 64 bit was faster at moving files.

Having said that, the term "performance problems" covers a lot of territory.

How good/fast is the network infrastrusture?

Using subnets?

how fast are the server hard drives?

how fast are the workstation hard drives?

etc..

 

Hi Phil,

I suppose you're going to install the 64 bit Windows on a dual-core PC.

64 bit software, the multi-threaded software, can full utilize the benefit of dual-core processors. Some programs such as data encryption software can benefit greatly from 64-bit registers (if the software is 64-bit compiled).

The point is do you have 64 bit software running on 64 bit Windows OS? If NO the only benefit is detecting more than 4G RAM on board. For a single core PC better go back to 32 bit Windows.


B.R.
satimis