Mac: 64-bit Cubase smoother than 32-bit?

When using Cubase 6 in 32-bit mode, I found it to be a bit ‘sticky’, i.e. there would be sudden random pauses every minute or so with the beach ball spinning for a few seconds before normal operation was resumed. Since using C6 in 64-bit mode, I’ve realised that this as stopped happening, as well as there being about a 5% improvement in CPU usage. Could this be down to the programme interacting more efficiently with the 64-bit operating system?

Has anybody else found this?

I spoke too soon about the random pauses - it looks like it’s happening when I use HALion Sonic SE (with the new HSO sound set) with more than about 5 instruments loaded.