Memory

• The first major performance advantage of 64-bit is the amount of memory that is available. A native 32-bit operating system is only capable of addressing up to 4GB of memory. This is a limitation of a 32-bit processor. On the other hand, 64-bit processors can address much more memory, technically as much as 16EB, or exabytes. Most versions of 64-bit Windows will only use the processor to address at least 8GB with the Ultimate Edition capable of using 192GB. This increase of memory allowance means much better performing applications that can make use of the extra memory.
  
  

Applications

• In most cases, a 64-bit processor will not perform quicker than a 32-bit processor. This is because many applications are natively 32-bit and have to run under the 32-bit mode. Even 64-bit applications will not necessarily perform better than 32-bit ones, and in many cases the design of 64-bit applications are due to compatibility issues with the processor.
  
  

Processing Speed

• Technically, a 64-bit processor is capable of performing faster than a 32-bit processor. A 64-bit processor can handle larger binary values. At the date of publication, however, very few scenarios exist where software can take the full advantage of this extra processing power.
  
  

Benefits

• Certain applications exist that will perform much faster on a 64-bit processor; these are usually specialist software suites that deal with very complex and large-scale mathematics. A good example of this would be cryptography software, used to perform many complex mathematical equations as quickly as possible, such as code breaking. In these scenarios, 64-bit will perform much quicker than 32-bit.