Certainly VST and Audio Unit effects, once re-jigged a bit for the new processor, will sound smoother and you should be able to run more of them in parallel without having to bounce tracks.
Not 'cetainly' at all actually. There is nothing stopping a coder form performing a 64-bit operation now the only disincentive being the speed hit of course. Most peoples ears and setups won't notice the slightest bit of difference unless they are Stockhausen and/or have top-notch recording/listening facilities which doesn't include going live through a PA unless you happen to be someone like Peter Gabriel.
The above poster was correct in stating that the people who will gain most from 64-bit ain't the like of us Live users. The addressing is fabulous for huge servers and serious video types. The bus speeds and raw grunt are were we gain which adds weight for more use of things such as Altivec/SSE2 and also gives a pointer as to why amD/Intel will always by sheer resources and pressure of competition will always outgrunt anything Apple chooses to adopt if they keep insisting on being so 'independant'. Why didn't Motrola get things up to Apples requirements? Because it is just plain peanuts to what their business generates with things such as microcontrollers in cell-phones, commercial goods, etc.
The new cpu Apple are adopting is without doubt a great move and a spiffy piece of silicon but 1) boy will you/we have to pay for it and 2) to exrapolate the best from a core with ongoing development takes resources and huge amounts of money which in turn needs income and a REAL requirement to do so. The rules opf engagement are different between the C and Mac platforms and no matter how much someone doesn't like the idea Intel/AMD have been pretty darn clever at getting 'more from their core(tm)' and have FAR more fabrication/know-how/demand and just plain resources to get to a next hurdle pretty quickly. It may be 'old' technology but then the humble engine and loudspeaker are as well, the cathode-ray tube has done pretty well also.
The true answer if you want more grunt in your system, if you insist on staying digital, and not have to be so beholdent to whatever your platform provides is to add some parallel grunt (re DSP) while everybody else argues the toss about which OS/CPU/Bit-depth is 'better' because as sure as eggs is eggs there will be something else that will strip that 'added extra' down quite a few notches within 6 months that will have your bank-manager smiling and thinking "He'll be back!!" in a subliminal Arnie voice.
You are paying through the nose for a very small short-term advantage (and that's debateable given how cheaply a dual Xeon setup can be put together for now) with Apple hardware as beautiful as it is from a design point of view.
Be happy whatever platform. I would argue that bigger gains would be had on either side by adding a further step to the development cycle of software hat seems to have disappeared. I would even suggest that what we pay for these days is pretty much BETA status software going from old yardsticks. Once the app is running as intended it should be optimised the SHIT out of, gradually moving core functions from C/whatever to highly optimised assembler even. THAT would yield greater results than the leaps the chip manufacturers can realistically provide but again it requires know-how and money. Oh, and a WILL for it to happen so hat's off to those who want Altivec optimisation (and that's from a PC user/developer) as it would be a startand so would the same on SSE2 (which is no slouch by any means).
Anyway, it's late and I'm rambling. 64-bit isn't the panacea many think it will be for audio purposes but it'll sure help shift a few boxes and arouse a few erections no doubt.
