
With the widespread availability of 64-bit computers, you can now take advantage of greater processing power and memory. Such computers process larger blocks of information at a time and can directly address more memory than their 32-bit predecessors.
For exceptionally large datasets, the more memory you can access, the better. With 64-bit Stata software, you can maximize your 64-bit system's potential and say goodbye to the old 2-GB memory barrier imposed by 32-bit systems. You are limited only by the total amount of memory on your machine.
In addition to accessing more memory, 64-bit Stata processes larger datasets more efficiently, making 64-bit Stata faster than 32-bit Stata. For example, see the results for the sort and regress commands below.
Runtime (seconds) | ||
---|---|---|
command | Time on 32-bit Stata | Time on 64-bit Stata |
sort | 2.00 seconds | 1.65 seconds |
regress | 0.88 seconds | 0.80 seconds |
For details, see What kind of performance increase can I expect in going from 32-bit to 64-bit Stata? and our list of supported platforms.
64-bit Stata requires both a 64-bit computing platform and a 64-bit operating system.
Need more speed and greater efficiency? Visit the Stata/MP pages for information about 64-bit computing on multicore or multiprocessor machines.