Are the 64 bit distros worth reinstalling as far as speed goes

I found (through this forum) a 64 bit slackware distro
intel's website says my cpu is a 64 bit
but it has nothing to say about the chipset other than it was made
to go with this cpu
I alredy run slackware so it's not like I will be switching distros
and the computer is new I haven't gotten the install fully configured
yet so it's not that much work that I will be throwing away

It's been addressed quite a bit, both here and on many distro sites.

Easy:
Give a reason you need it if you're on a production system, if you can't, don't switch.
If issues don't affect mission and you're willing to spend time and maybe post some bugs, help it along.

Realistic:
64-bit brings up the issues of extra addressing overhead which is relative to the use and implementation of a specific scenario. i.e. ALL variables must be considered, this is not a which one looks better simple answer thing. ;x
Some things work faster, some slower. Take time, do a little reading on what you use and whether there is any gain in performance/speed.

I have been using the 64bit version of Ubuntu 7.10 for quite some time now and from my point of view I can't see many benefits, so far it only has caused me grief, there are still some things that are 32bit only >_< and there's the issue of programs taking a bit more space in disk and ram.
If you ask me its better to use a bloat free 32bit linux distro than a regular 64bit one.
Next stop for me most probably is going to be ArchLinux 32bit, I'm now doing a test install in a virtual machine to start getting used to it, its a more demanding distro config wise but it seems to be worth it.

I've been using 64bit Debian for some time, haven;t really seen any performance gains or losses, but it's good if you have a large amount of ram or a really large filesystem.

I would if I had plenty of RAM. My main box has 4GB so 64 bit is the only proper way to go. The old AMD with 1GB still runs 32 bit, though. I have actually used 32 bits on the main box as well when it had only 2GB - not much of a difference unless you are editing movies or running databases all day long. And even then 64 bit won't be twice as fast - not nearly - contrary to what some people seem to think, more like 20-30%. And it will eat more RAM. Gnome 32 bit after booting 180MB; 64 bit: about 300.

I did the same software installs from debian's testing packages from both 86 and 86_64.
The 86_64 was chomping on at least 100k more memory than the 86 one.
And with the applications cpu, top was showing 0.2-0.3 more cpu for the same applications on a 86_64.
But I dont mind the overhead because at least i got my ipv6 support and my extra address space for huge filenames.

I always have run 32 bit software on my laptop. Prehaps if I were to get a desktop I would consider it, but my laptop is always used by a lot of people and seen by a lot of people, so I don't want there to be glaring issues such as bad flash support.

I accidentally built my Mum a 64-bit system. She still doesn't have flash support.

I'd go with a multi-lib distro rather than a "pure" 64-bit distro. I've been using a multi-lib distro for almost three years now without any significant problems. For numerically intensive tasks you will see a performance boost, for day-to-day tasks you likely won't. If a task takes minutes or hours on a 32-bit platform, you can expect to see about a 30% reduction in time it takes to complete the same task on a 64-bit platform.

I have had no problem using flash on my 64bit system. I just install the package "flashplayer-mozilla_9.0.124.0-0.0_amd64.deb" and I'm good to go.

I have a couple of 64bit machines and I can tell you that unless you have 4 GB or more RAM you aren't going to see any improvement - and then its not all that much. The software is currently written in 32bit and then ported to 64bit. Its really not all that its advertised to be.

Well, would I try it out, yes, in fact I'm running it right now slamd64. Works great so far, just like regular Slackware. My limited testing so far says that many apps will start approximately 1 sec faster (real time). It's just as stable tho, and I also seem to get more FPS using glxgears and also in games. It's not a huge difference, but I definitely noticed it when installing Slackware. Regular Slackware takes at least 50% longer to install than slamd64. You can also run 32-bit apps just fine if you have the 32-bit dependencies installed. Now it is a bit tricky to install some things as 32-bit, they are really stubborn, but many times you can install the Slackware version and it will work fine (not that I recommend it). Also there is the inconvenience that so far you must have a 32-bit FF installed to run java applets as these are not supported by 64-bit java for some stupid reason. But, rest assured that work is being done to correct this soon so that 64-bit distros will no longer have with java applets.

You would install openJDK or IcedTea to take care of 64 bit applets.

I installed 64 bit and couldn't get flash to work, so went back to 32 bit. Since I only have 1 gig of RAM, maybe I should leave well enough alone.

According to the chief editor of Linux Mint (Clem) they have no intentions of creating a 64 bit distribution because their benchmarks prove that you gain absolutely nothing from 64bit under 4 GB or RAM and then it requires good benchmarks to actually see any difference.

Here is one of many threads on Linux Mint Forum For those who don't know Mint it is a derivative of Ubuntu