What you're doing hardly qualifies for average or what I would call desktop usage. In fact what you're doing is what normally happens on servers (and shouldn't you be running your DB on server anyway?), so while I can concede the point for your tasks (because you like need the extra memory), I hardly think this applies to the average or even power user/developer scenario.

I'll get zero advantage by running Visual Studio or my applications on a 64 bit machine - all I look forward to is additional memory usage and incompatibilities with applications that won't install on 64 bit or run incorrectly.

+++ Rick ---

> You think running the SQL Server UI in 64 bit is really going to give you a perf advantage? :-}
>
>Nice attempt at humor. I believe the client tools are still 32-bit <s>
>
>I build training videos and conduct database training using SSAS where I'm processing OLAP cubes that are as much as 80 GB, where one of the servers is a standalone server environment.
>
>Same thing with MOSS and PerformancePoint Server - the 64-bit versions yield better performance to the naked eye, especially MOSS.
>
>I know ETL developers who test out SSIS 2008 packages on their own standalone 64-bit machines.
>
>As I said earlier, there are a number of database developers out there who are a mix of that "apples and oranges" you spoke of earlier.