I am pricing a new software development machine and looking at the dell precision series.
When I get to this screen:
The first choice is: Buy a Precision WorkStation T7400 32bit Now!
and the second choice is: Buy a Precision WorkStation T7400 64bit Now!
am I really at that point just deciding which software I want installed? or is there actually a different chipset depending on the choice.
I don’t want to limit my options down the road by picking the wrong one – I can always upgrade the software – but I don’t want to have to replace hardware.
BTW: This will be for SD of a Microsoft stack, asp.net, vs 2008, sql server etc and I would like to start using virtualization (probably from MS) with this machine purchase.
64-Bit, but just not XP64 (Which Dell offers as a downgrade). Driver situation is quite awful, and there are some incompatibilities in Software. If you need/want to stick to XP, go 32-Bit, if you want to use Vista or Windows Server 2008, 64-Bit is fine.
The only difference is the operating system anyway, so you can freely switch between installing 32 or 64 Bit Windows, you may just need to buy another License.