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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.
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.
"Advanced Server for Advanced Dummies"
I can't wait.
-... ---
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
This release will not work on AMD SledgeHammer. This one is particularly for the IA64 instruction set, not IA32 or x86-64. The standard Windows 2000 and Windows XP will work just fine on SledgeHammer, if you want to waste all that AMD goodness on a 32-bit Microsoft OS.
Microsoft is also considering an x86-64 port of Windows XP, but they have not announced their decision yet.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
ObLinuxComment: Let's make Linux 128-bit clean, just for the hell of it, so it's ready for when someone makes a 128-bit processor to run it on.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Wow, I have to get it quick - will it come with an extra disc with commentary and "making of" features?
Does anyone know if it comes in a metal lunchbox, or tin case?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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
originally did.
SGI was the first "mainstream" vendor to go
with a 64-bit OS (and it still has 32-bit-mode
and 64-bit-mode executables. DEC was next with
OSF/1 (later renamed Digital UNIX), and eventually VMS. IBM and Sun came later -- about the same
time as Linux (for Alpha and then for MIPS).
IMNHO, there was a very good reason Intel made
such an investment into the IA-64 port of Linux:
so that they could be sure there would be an OS
for it by the time it came on the market!
MS is a latecomer for that (currently have Linux
and two other UNIX ports that I know of with 64-bit support for IA-64).
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
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.
I've read the manuals, and I've talked to a number of CPU architects and compiler writers. They have no trouble believing how hard it is to get good performance out of the IA64 architecture.
The fundamental problem is that IA64 is an in-order design. Your code hums along, does a load from memory, misses in the cache --- and everything stops until that value comes in. In an out-of-order machine (every other high performance CPU since the Pentium Pro in 1995), while it's waiting for that value to come in from memory, it will be executing other instructions that technically are supposed to happen AFTER the load, but don't actually depend on its value.
The IA64 was supposed to get around this problem by providing speculative loads with alias masks and other tricks so the compiler could hoist the load and perform it super-early, long before the value was needed, so any delay due to cache miss would not impact execution. Intel's big bet was that this would make out-of-order execution unnecessary. They lost the bet, for two reasons: 1) real programs (as opposed to toy benchmarks) are too unpredictable. There just isn't enough information available at compile time to decide what can and should be loaded early, which order instructions should go in, etc. The decisions have to be made at run time by the CPU itself. 2) The cost of out-of-order execution was overestimated. In the last five years we've been able to build really big horrible superscalar out of order cores with really fast cycle times. OTOH, the Itanium's supposedly "simpler" core has a crap clock speed. Go figure.
95% of what you read about the IA64 architecture is marketing hype. Just because it's "new" and "different" doesn't make it better. In fact, on the numbers, it appears to be worse in most cases.
I wasn't referring to any benchmarks, I was intending a sarcastic slam at Intel for rigging their P4 with a ridiculously long performence-killing 20 stage pipeline just so they could crank the clockspeed above what the AMD Athlon (with its much more rational 11 stage pipeline) can do. I guess I should have nixed the Quake3 comment that threw everyone. Intel has a minor marketing headache on their hands if anyone bothers to ask why the ridiculously expensive sub-GHz Itanium is a faster chip than the 2GHz P4.
AMD should bring up this point in their marketing, actually.
I'm betting on the AMD Hammer series (2H2002) over the second-generation Itaniums (McKinley?) regardless.