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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.
Yea it'll work on the 64 bit chips, by reducing their functionality to that of a 32-bit chip. Much like how it now utilizes a 32-bit chip at the level of a 16-bit chip.
Sorry, maybe I'm missing something here but how does increased floating point performance equate to significantly better web serving? (either of static content or dynamic) I'm very skeptical but I'm also curious to see if there is an aspect to this I've previously missed. The increased memory addressability otoh makes perfect sense, apache sure can be a hungry beast when you lard those chillen' (yeah, I'm from the southern US ;) ) up with mod_perl et al...
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
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.
Not exactly. Remember that MS had the Alpha port of WinNT4 going, and lot of 2k/XP is based on NT (most..).
And I really don't think that they started the port only after Intel "Announced" ia64 being available. I bet that MS has been on this port for 2-3 years minimum. Compare that to Linux then, It makes a nicer graph =)
What I really don't understand is why MS fucked Alpha down. In my experience Alpha is STILL pretty nice player in server level (my uni runs mostly on alphas/ x86+linux)
With alpha support it'd be much easier to support amd athlon+x86-64 (it's ev6 style bus, right?)
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
But golly, the Itanium isn't even GHz-class while the Pentium 4 is 2GHz. Why would anyone buy such an obviously slow machine? Even a pokey 1.4GHz Athlon is faster than the Itanium, right? Quake 3 framerates must really suck!
(Amusing how Intel went with a short pipeline at the expense of clockspeed when selling to a more technologically literate market...)
I wonder if Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition is about as much 64 bit as Windows 95 is 32 bit.
.NET thing so popular that Windows will make it all the way to world domination?
Undoubtedly parts of this version of Windows 2000 has to remain 32 bit for compatibility. Or is Microsoft going to port Microsoft Office to 64 bit Windows as well? Unless Microsoft has implemented some type of FX!32 (DECs 32 -> 64 bit layer which "learns" and accellerates), this release of Windows may potentially be quite useless. One of the reasons people use Windows is the availability of applications.
I can't for the life of me think that this is anything different from a marketing release where Microsoft can say "We're in the future, we're 64 bit". But it's nevertheless interesting that Microsoft has gotten something out the door that is 64 bit. Let's see how well Microsoft entrenches itself in the datacenters. My guess is that the 64 bit x86 (Intel or AMD) will become far cheaper than the Sun counterparts and thus taking over a lot, but not everything. But will Windows be the preferred platform or is Linux going to hit Microsoft where it hurts? Or perhaps Microsoft will make this
In either case, from a technical standpoint I will observe how Windows 64 bit is going. Very interesting indeed.
Alex
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
I'm not an expert, but I was under the impression that the Power Mac G4 processors were 128-bit...
http://www.apple.com/powermac/processor.html
I was going to say the same thing, that, as far as current customers are concerned, this product seems to fill an incredible Non-Niche.
It's exclusively for IA-64, which can't compete head to head with established RISC hardware yet. Also, given that the OS's for the competitive RISC hardware have been around longer, had more bugs shaken out, had more apps (eg, Oracle) developed for them, Advanced Server won't provide any kind of revenue for MS. It's all written off for the sake of future revenue.
Like anything, they're willing to let it slog slowly up through the ranks for a few years until it gains credibility (eg, the first 2 versions of Windows and of NT). Eventually, though, all this beta testing will pay off so that in 2005 they can argue convincingly that they can provide an alternative to the big iron from IBM, Sun, HP, SGI and Compaq (DEC).
The other benefit of this move for MS is to provide a testing ground for their code base so that if IA-64 ever does develop into something so desirable that it begins to appear in desktops, they'll have some experience for it. With the recent boost that Intel gets from killing off the Alpha competitor and from using the Alpha's carcass to improve the sickly Itanium, the IA-64 will eventually become something to be reckoned with, even if through the sheer brute force of the dollars behind it.
For current customers, though, this OS release is a yawning opportunity to be part of MS beta test program. As with the Linux IA-64 release, it is mildly interesting, with genuine interest deferred until the point that the hardware is competitive with the established RISC vendors.
Anyone care to compare and contrast their 64 bit foray to their first foray into the 32 bit world?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
They don't. The problem for Intel is that Itanium's performance on everything except floating-point intensive applications is TERRIBLE. Itanium's SpecInt number is well below 400 in any configuration, which is slower than any other PC-class CPU available today. Itanium is much better on SpecFP, although it remains to be seen how good it is on REAL floating point applications.
Itanium, and in fact the entire IA64 architecture, is a disaster. They bet the company on the wrong technology*. Intel will probably survive just because their marketing machine will persuade clueless corporate buyers to take the chip.
* The numbers don't lie: for most applications, all the explicit parallelism, speculative operations, compiler engineering and transistor count in the world can't compensate for not having a real speculating, out-of-order core.
The only functional difference between n32 and 64 is the size of the pointer. Under n32, sizeof(char*) is 32 bits, and under 64 it's 64 bits. That means you can address more than 2 GB of memory with the 64 ABI.
Under both ABIs, you have access to the 128-bit "long double" type. Under n32, a "long" is an "int" (32 bits), while under 64 a "long" is a "long long" (64 bits).
What this means is this: if you're careless, and use the "long" type in your source code, the same program compiled for the n32 ABI will probably be faster than the 64 ABI version, because you'll be able to fit more "longs" into cache.
The moral of the story? Don't use the "long" type. If you need 32 bits, use an int, and if you need 64, use a long long.