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Windows Reaches 64-Bits, For OEMs

Posted by timothy on from the grand-innovations dept.

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.

3 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. windows is finally catching up to linux... by mz001b · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:windows is finally catching up to linux... by Pengo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  2. Re:Wasted Power by Bonker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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