I've read alot over the last few months/years about the shift to 64 bit computing, and it obviously is the future, but the question is how far away is that future?

I'm an upcomming college student, leaving for school in mid august and will need a laptop for college, one that I would like to last me 4 years until I (hopefully) graduate. Now, by that time how necessary will 64 bit computing be? Will I be left out and have to buy a new laptop in 2-3 years if I go with a Core Duo now, or would I be better off with a Turion X2 since it's already 64 bit. Merom is not set to be released until after I leave, and I would prefer not to wait that long to get a computer.

For cost/performance now it seems as the Core Duo is superior to the X2 at this time, but I do not want to be left with an obsolete computer 2 years from now. Basically I'm wondering if a 32 bit laptop is good enough to last me 4 decent years through college and general home entertainment purposes.

Thanks

P.S. I'm planning on being a finance major with an outside chance of doing industrial engineering if that matters

32bit will be around for sometime to come Vista will be 32/64bit so Microsoft isn't going to drop support for 32bit programs for at least another 7 or 8 years. From what I was reading Windows next os set to be released in 2012 codenamed blackcomb will be nothing but 64bit. As for programs making the shift to 64bit, you will start to see a good amount of programs start to make the shift from 32bit to 64bit by the end of 2007. 64bit is slowly starting to take affect down to this sector of the consumor market. Right now the bulk of 64bit programs are on servers etc..

You should be safe, but it's nice to have a 64bit processor incase you want to make the jump to a 64bit OS. 64bit cpus running in 64bit mode outpreforms their 32bit counterparts running in 32bit mode. Not to mention 64bit 3D programs look crsiper then on 32bit. Fary Cry vs Far Cry 64 is a prime example of that.

To me 64bit is a big plus considering I use Windows XP 64 now and I notice a bit of preformance increase then I did running Windows XP 32bit.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7900GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

I just read today that Intel is working on a project that will increase the processor speed by 16x....& this "breakthrough" in multi-core technology is expected to occur by 2010. CPUs with 32 cores? Then again (as the article starts off), 5 years ago Intel envisioned CPUs running at 20GHz by 2010.

I wouldn't be TOO concerned about getting a "futureproof" PC or laptop...there is no such animal! Just get the best technology you can afford & hope for the best.

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/10/intel_32_core_processor/