Video encoding is certainly one of the main advantages to having multiple cores, and compile times are reduced in my experience (note that you have to specify threads to use for both, or you will not get any real advantage). I am not a hardcore gamer by any means but of the two games I do play, switching from 32-bit to 64-bit on the same hardware made one game's FPS dramatically improve (and stabilize), while in the other (which is closed-source and thus compiled by someone else...who may not have known what they were doing when it comes to optimizations...) was much worse in 64-bit than 32-bit. Other than the above CPU-intensive operations there isn't much difference that I've noticed on an anecdotal level, though I have *not* timed application launch times. So I would certainly say that if your hardware supports 64-bit, go for it (I don't use multilib but it's nice if you need to use Skype or WINE or something), but if you don't do any of the above then it will probably feel fairly similar to your 32-bit experience. Keep in mind that you can always specify multiple threads in a 32-bit OS as well for video encoding/compiling, for example.

I just timed the latest firefox compile 3.6.3, using 'make -j4' at:

This is on a 'Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9300 @ 2.50GHz'

Interesting.

Here's mine, running the firefox slackbuild (with make -j4) on my Core2 Duo E7400 @ 2.8GHZ:

real 12m8.725s
user 17m24.388s
sys 1m34.172s

Encrypted filesystem might have caused a small overhead too.

i7 920. make -j9

real 4m19.385s
user 14m42.689s
sys 0m50.312s

thats sick. its take me over 25 minutes to compile firefox.

Well, clearly a definite winner, and with double the speed and less than double the price it would be a good deal. Except that doesn't take into account the mobo and RAM.

I got an i7 laptop - won't be the absolute fastest, but it'll eat most of what I have to play with.
And I can play (online) poker at the same time ....

Got the mobo and chip in-store for under $300. It's not a bad price. I'm into the build for about $600. I did cheap out on RAM and paid for it in stablility. Should've spent $650!

Thanks is just thanks.

I know some people disagree with my opinion but here it is.

I think that multiple CPU cores makes more of a difference in speed than using a 64-bit OS instead of a 32-bit OS. The 64-bit instruction set is only slightly faster when running the same software, although software can be further optimized for 64-bit.

I'm still using 32-bit Slackware on my Core i7 because more applications are compatible and I don't have to install extra libraries to run 32-bit applications. The 64-bit support for applications continues to improve so I will probably be moving to 64-bit on the next Slackware release. I was a little hesitant to ue the very first 64-bit Slackware release even though it appears to be every bit as solid as the 32-bit version.

Multiple CPU cores speeds up some things but it is usually better to first invest your money in getting a fast clock rate (2.5 GHz to 3.2 GHz). Games usually use one CPU core. Some video conversion software does use multiple cores. If you plan to run multiple applications, especially one's that do a lot of processing rather than just waiting for you to click something then multiple cores will help. For most people a dual-core CPU at a fast clock rate is fine.

I got a quad-core CPU because I do software development and I often run a virtual machine (two CPU cores) with Windows XP on top of Windows Vista. Between the extra two cores and the hardware virtual features the Core i7 is very fast for that application.

I can run the same virtual machine with Windows XP on top of Slackware and I often do that. I like having choices and Linux is better for some things while Windows Vista is better for others.

64-bit is mostly a marketing gimmick. First it was a way for AMD to garner attention. Next it was a way for CPU manufacturers and computer manufacturers to sell upgrades. Microsoft has been carefully sitting on the fence and still ships 32-bit operating systems along with 64-bit operating systems. I think customers would have benefited more if Microsoft had added full 64GB PAE support in Windows 32-bit rather than forcing people to upgrade to a 64-bit OS. Fortunately that isn't an issue with Linux and the 32-bit OS can address up to 64GB of RAM. I use all 6GB of my RAM with 32-bit Slackware.

Some applications do run faster on a 64-bit OS, so there is some benefit to choosing it. The drawbacks are mostly gone since there are few 32-bit applications that don't work on a 64-bit OS. It makes no sense to buy a 32-bit CPU since a 64-bit CPU will run an existing 32-bit OS. The 64-bit hardware does improve performance due to a wider bus and more modern technology.

Like most things with computers, all of what I said depends on the application. There are plenty of reasons to prefer a 64-bit OS for some applications.

Thanks a lot to all!