64-bit computing enables applications to address a theoretical 16 billion gigabytes of memory, or 16 exabytes. Today’s Macs can hold up to 32GB of physical memory, but the 32-bit applications that run on them can address only 4GB of RAM at a time. The entire computing industry is moving from 32-bit to 64-bit technology. The rest of us mortals can live very well with a 32-bit Mac OS X kernel, and use those memory intensive applications to our hearts content. Today, the ONLY reason to boot your Mac OS X kernel as 64-bits is if you have a special device driver or kernel extension from a 3rd party which only works in 64-bit mode (this is extremely rare), or you are a 3rd party developer that is writing that 64-bit driver or kernel extension. If you run Applications -> Utilities -> Activity Monitor, you will see that many Snow Leopard applications are already running as 64-bit apps, and this is with your kernel booted as a 32-bit kernel. If you have a 64-bit application it will be able to use more than 4GB of memory (if it wants to that is, and you happen to have the memory for it). You DO NOT need to boot into a 64-bit Mac OS X kernel to run 64-bit applications. ![]() With Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6), Most of the applications bundled with Snow Leopard have been built as 64-bit applciations, and RUN that way on both 32-bit and 64-bit Mac OS X kernels. A 32-bit Mac OS X kernel has been able to run 64-bit Applications since Mac OS X Leopard (10.5).
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