Preparing Ubuntu 10.04 new install - 32 or 64 bit? Please suggest.

[Juan R. de Silva]

On Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:56:22 +0000, Juan R. de Silva wrote:

> My PSU smoked out burning an old Asus P4PE motherboard aw well, thus
> effectively invalidating the rest of the system components, otherwise
> still functioning.
> 
> So, I had to configure myself a brand new system as follows:
> 
> - Intel Core i5 2500K Quad Core Unlocked Processor LGA1155 3.3GHZ Sandy
> Bridge 6MB
> - ASUS P8P67 ATX P67 LGA1155 DDR3 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 3PCI USB3.0 Sandy
> Bridge B3 Motherboard
> - G.SKILL Ripjaws X F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24
> Memory
> - Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache
> 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive
> - Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 650MHZ 1Gb 1.8GHZ DDR3 PCI-E VGA DVI HDMI Low
> Profile Video Card
> 
> Having until now and old system running Intel P4 1.4 GHz I've never been
> concerned with 32 vs. 64 bit dilemma, and now I am.
> 
> I'm going to install Ubuntu 10.04. When I get to the Ubuntu Download
> page and selecte the desired version I am offered by default "32-bit
> (recommended)" option.
> 
> What would you suggest - 32 or 64 bit? My new hardware suggest 64 bit.
> But would I run into any problems going this way: performance,
> applications support/availability, etc.? Why Ubuntu folks recommend 32
> bit instead of 64 bit version?
> 
> Thanks.

After looking closer through Lucid images available for download, it 
looks to me that 64 bit is available for AMD processors only. This is 
odd. Am I out of luck with my Intel CPU?  Or I've misunderstood something?