32bit vs 64bit

[bah1976]

I am entering the phase where I'm building my production myth box on production hardware. At this point, I am planning on using (I'll be ordering next week) this processor from newegg:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor Model ADO4800DOBOX - Retail
With currently 2GB of RAM, although my new MB will hold 8GB.

I'm going to build new with 8.04, but I'm trying to decide between the 32bit & 64bit builds. I can't find a good description anywhere of the differences - is one better than the other? I've never used a 64bit OS before myself, do I gain anything besides being able to use more than 4GB of memory?

Thanks for your thoughts...

[teaker1s]

unless you more issues and arguable performance gains use 32 bit.
I run a 64 bit cpu as a media desktop on 32 bit os and a laptop on 64 bity os. choice is yours

[grytpype]

I'm running the AMD64 version of the distro on my X2 processor, 4GB RAM, and it's working fine.

There really aren't any problems with the 64-bit version unless for some reason you want to run a 32-bit binary that won't work with the compatibility libraries.

[ronacc]

unless you specificly want to run an app that is 32bit only and as grytpype stated don't play nice with the compaitbility libs go 64bit . I have been 64bit only since AMD first brought out the Athalon 64 and have never looked back . 64 bit is where things are going , 32 bit is where they have been .

[superm1]

I personally prefer to run 64 bit because then the optimizations always include SSE2 (all 64 bit CPUs have SSE2).

[uopjohnson]

I think the whole 32bit 64bit discussion is over I haven't seen a single issue using the amb64 builds in more than a year. Plus why waste all that horsepower?