Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

thatrez writes: "Microsoft 's Windows Advanced Server, Limited Edition, is now available for computers based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium chip. The Itanium chip supports greater amounts of system memory and offers stronger floating-point, or mathematical, capabilities than current 32-bit desktop processors. The extra memory support and the floating-point capabilities increase the performance of Web hosting, data warehousing and other applications." Now available in this case means that certain OEMs will soon be selling systems loaded with 64-bit Advanced Server, and later other manufacturers will join in. 64-bit versions of XP are expected sometime next year as well.

Comments

windows is finally catching up to linux...

[mz001b]

just about 6 mos (?) after the 64-bit linux stuff was announced. It's incredible how much progress you can make with billions of $$s backing you up.

Re:windows is finally catching up to linux...

[faichai]

Didn't Windows used to run on Alpha? Wasn't Alpha a 64bit chip?

If i do remember that right then MS has had a reasonable amount of experience with 64bit too.

Although note that IRIX was running on MIPS. MIPS and Alpha were both 64bit RISC chips. Whereas Itanium is VLIW. No one has had that much experience porting anything sizeable to a VLIW architecture, with linux it is fairly easy, a few Kernel and compiler mods, and your sorted for a fully working system...windows on the other hand...euuughhhh...I feel dirty ;-)

Re:windows is finally catching up to linux...

[Pengo]

We have a few irix based machines, having talking to one of the SGI guys, they said that it's a bit of a myth that the 32bit abi is significantly slower than the 64 bit abi on IRIX.

Aparantly the 64bit architecture helps out when doing things like accessing large disks, large amounts of memory, etc. But the instructions are basically the same, so in theory.... ImageMagick will convert images at the same performance at 32bit on Irix as compiled at 64bit on Irix. (assuming that they are both running on a 64bit platform.. ie Origin 200).

Anyway, this was from an SGI employee... who knows, maybe he is wrong... but I haven't seen any performance gains or losses to disprove what he has said.

Re:Wasted Power

[Bonker]

Aren't current desktop computers already majorly overpowered? What do average desktop users need 64 bits of unbelievable number crunching power for?

Two Words: Video Compression

Seriously, while 64 bit processors running at 1.x GHZ will be wasted on desktops, this power is just the sort of thing to beef up existing dual and quad CPU SQL servers.

Re:Win95 Nightmares

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what, all 64-bit OSes must be 100% new code?

Re:64 bit Windows

[I_redwolf]

Just because it's cheaper doesn't mean it's better especially in this case (let us not compare things like linux vs windows etc). However Sun provides quality hardware and their engineering team is composed of top engineers across the world. They have been developing 64 bit platforms for quite sometime now and I don't see Windows being a 64bit platform taking over anytime soon. Simply because it hasn't been tested, windows software is usually buggy and people who actually use 64 bit platforms need reliability at all cost. They also need a stable enviroment which Sun also provides in Solaris. My guess is that 64 bit x86 (Intel or AMD) will be widely unused in big datacenters or scientific labs. However you might see an increase in information/web hosting camps but not something in any drastic proportion that would indicate a large increase in share; not even a peak.

Re:wow this is great news...

[grammar fascist]

I'll run it on my nonexistant IA64 machine!

Wow...you didn't even need to read the article to figure this one out - it was in the title, of all places:

Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. That leads me to believe that they'll be shipping 64-bit Windows on 64-bit machines. But then, you can't flame someone for doing that...