Slashdot Mirror
Intel: No Rush to 64-bit Desktop
An anonymous reader writes "Advanced Micro Devices and Apple Computer will likely tout that they can deliver 64-bit computing to desktops this year, but Intel is in no hurry. Two of the company's top researchers said that a lack of applications, existing circumstances in the memory market, and the inherent challenges in getting the industry and consumers to migrate to new chips will likely keep Intel from coming out with a 64-bit chip--similar to those found in high-end servers and workstations--for PCs for years."
Right now 4 GB of memory might be enough. But switching to 64 bit when we are already hitting the wall is not an option. The point with going to 64 bits now is that we can add memory past 4 GB without the headaches of moving to a new platform, since the transition is already done.
If Intel keeps on braking a lot of people will get really disappointed when they realize they need more memory than their platform supports.
.: Max Romantschuk
They're hardly likely to talk up the benefits of 64-bits on the desktop when their current 64-bit chip is so unsuitable. As and when they have an equivalent to AMD/Apple on the desktop, you can be sure they'll be more than happy to sing its praises.
What's interesting is the "nobody really needs 4Gb this decade" line. Just about every Mac in this room has 1Gb in it, and even the crappy test PC has 768Mb. 4Gb will be here sooner rather than later...
64-bit computing has been around forever, just not on the PC platform. It's really not a big deal. And as for the desktop? There's no need whatsoever, as any performance benefits will be offset by the cost of change. I'm sure the Quake-playing twits will scream bloody murder, but the rest of us won't even notice.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Well if there is no hardware, how can there be 64 bit apps?
But the gaming market is going to drive this and the hardcore gamers already build their systems (with AMD?). Intel will lose nothing at first.
the whole pc architecture should ideally be replaced. we're still using something designed in the 80's, with lil hacks here and there to make it work in this current day. unfortunatly, it would be incredibly difficult to do, as all software and hardware would have to be remade. backward compatibilty slows us down from moving forward. even if everything was replaced, how long till it would be obsolete and need a further replacement?
They would say that there's no hurry to the 64-bit desktop beacause they are not in a position to provide one. They have the expensive, specialised itanic for the high-end and HP have told them to be quiet about Yamhill, their Hammer equivalent. Apple and AMD are on to a winner. Personally, I can't wait to get a 64-bit home machine. That's why I haven't upgraded for over 3 years. Intel is advocating hacks to get around the 4GB limit just like the old LIM (Lotus intel Microsoft) Expanded Memory boards for the old IBM PCs of yore : basically segmentation and paging. Anyone who can remember those days will concur. I'm afraid intel will need to pull a rabbit out of its hat very soon. Expect to see Yamhill processors announced later this year (Pentiums, Xeons?, with "64-bit extensions").
Stick Men
Intel has rewarmed segmented memory. Great, thanks, just what we need in 2003. More hacks that we'll have to work around in 5 years time in order to remain backwards compatible. Man, I can't wait!
Except that the price for the client with HD,processor,memory is cheap. By the time you factor in the cost of a network able computer vs the dumb(x-term, terminal services,etc) terminal the costs are about the same.
So now that you have a cheap smart terminal whith the capability of running its own applications, why spend large amounts of money on a huge network and backend servers.
From a management standpoint x-term type machines would be great, everything stored on the servers for backup; easy management, just replace a broken one with a working and the user is back up, and users could move around and keep all thier settings. It keeps being tried every few years and keeps being rejected by corporations.
And as for the desktop? There's no need whatsoever,
In the beginning, no one really needed a PC either. It is not need that drives the tech market, its want.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Didn't Apple manage to get their (admittedly smaller) user base to switch to a better processor?
Yes. They did it gradually. The first PPC Macs ran a 68k emulator which provided backwards compatability for old Mac software. Intel are trying to do the same thing; you can run IA-32 software on IA-64.
The problem that Intel has, and that Apple didn't, is that the IA-32 mode on an Itanium is generally slower than a real IA-32. Many Mac users found that their old 68k code ran just the same, or in some cases faster on the new PPC's. Intel then, is at a disadvantage with the IA-64, speedwide. Why invest all that money in a new platform just to run your code slower?
Now, this might not be such a problem if people were busy porting their stuff and tuning it for the IA-64, but Intel have two problem there. The first if the chicken and egg; no one is buying IA-64, so no one is porting their applications, so no one is buying IA-64. The other problem is technical; the EPIC (VLIW) instruction set is a nightmare to understand and code. Only a handful of people trully understand the full IA-64 ISA, so compilers and Operating Systems are slow to suport it. If you don't have adequate tools, how can you do the job?
At the moment, it looks like Intel could be onto a looser with IA-64. Only time will tell.
Wouldn't it make more sense to put that 64 on the server, with XXGB of RAM, and push the display to the clients?
Not if there's a dial-up link between the server and client.
Not if the application is movie editing. 640x480 pixels x 24fps x 24-bit color = too big for even 100Mbps Ethernet.
Will I retire or break 10K?
64-bit CPUs are really an OS designer's wet dream. There are lots of things (bounce buffers, dynamic RAM map, prelinking headaches) that just go away with a 64-bit address space. You can just map all RAM permenently, prelink all binaries to a unique address, and move on with your life (or lack thereof). I was thinking the other day, that with the move to database oriented filesystems like Reiser4 and LonghornFS (for lack of a better name) that the time is ripe for some of that OO research from the 80's and 90's to kick in. The gist is that instead of the basic abstraction being files with a strict naming hierarchy, the basic abstraction is a set of objects with a very flexible database index. Throw in object persistence, and you've got yourself a very elegant setup, with basically and OODBMS at the core of the system. However, straightforward (fast) implementations of the scheme blow away a 4GB address space. For something like this, you really want to be able to mmap() a 120GB harddrive and remove a whole lot of intervening hacks.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
People that want to do serious number crunching use supercomputers, which have been 64-bit systems for a long time. There's a reason for this...
Average college students aren't set research problems. There's a reason for this too...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
3) Windows will finally release a 64 bit OS (also note: they could have done this YEARS ago under Alpha, but didn't - Windows NT under Alpha only could access a 32 bit address space.) Microsoft will hail this as a revolutionary breakthrough - "Windows AYCABTU is the first 64 bit OS for the home user!" *nix and Apple users will scratch their heads in puzzlement.
We know that Microsoft actually bothered to write an Itanium-native 64-bit version of Windows XP Professional; it doesn't take much to figure out that Microsoft is right now coding an Athlon 64/Opteron 64-bit native version of Windows XP. My guess is that Windows XP for the Athlon 64 will be released commercially about the same time as the Athlon 64 is released (circa September 2003).
The truth? Corporate pride possibly. Intel are quite happy to set the hardware workd back a few years as a result of "not invented here" syndrome.
:-)
Which (apart from annoying all the HPC people) will just make it funnier if Intel end up using x86-64, or even reincarnating alpha.
As long as memory keeps getting cheaper and people are prepared to keep upgrading software companies have no incentives to spend resources on reducing bloat. Developer time is costly, and often it makes far more economic sense for the software companies to shove something out the door as soon as it works (or even before ;) without spending more time cutting memory usage when most users will have enough memory soon enough anyway.
Kind of like how a speed bump on the road can sometimes have a positive effect for traffic on the whole. Consider the current state of (desktop) software: its rarely written with efficiency as an important consideration. Often, there is not much incentive to do so: as long as it runs comfortably on decently new hardware, its fine. As a result, people who are forced to use bottom-of-the-line hardware are screwed. (Like me. I'm running my webserver on stone-age hardware, simply because I can't afford anything more). In fact, Microsoft even goes to the extent of deliberately makign its new releases require the latest hardware to force users into an upgrade cycle. This is a Bad Thing.
Now consider the effect that the 32-bit speedbreaker will have. Applications like gaming will be affected first. Since they have to add more features without getting more memory expensive, there will be incentive to do more efficient coding. In turn there will be pressure on underlying libraries to be more efficient. Other apps using these libs will start benefitting. There will also be more programmers catching those memory leaks which eat tons of memory rather than postponing them to a future release. More emphasis on software engg in general.
The bottom line: more headaches for programmers for a couple of years, but smaller, faster, better software for a long time.
- RISC simply means that an operation instruction is embedded with both the opcode and the operands.
No, RISC means "Reduced Instruction Set Computer".- A CISC chip is one in which the opcode tends to be the first instruction processed and the operands are the next couple of instructions inputted.
No, CISC is a name made up by the people who invented the name RISC as is applied in a derrogatory manner to x86. Note that nearly all "RISC" chips in use today also need to pre-process instructions before they are executed as well. This is because of state machine instructions (like DIV) multiple actions instructions (test-and-set) and just plain weirdo instruction ideas (ARMs embed optional shift in all ALU instructions, PPCs have a multiple store instructions, etc.) You can see this in their pipelines -- they all have stages like "decode" or "crack" where things like this are figured out.The real difference between x86's and RISC's are that the x86 ISA was designed without consideration for contemporary CPU design technology (that is/was available at the time), while RISCs supposedly are. But anyone who has looked under the hood of these CPUs will see that this has not impeded the modern x86s. x86s are more complicated (and therefore in theory should probably be either a bit larger or slower) but as time shown, instruction set complications are not the only consideration for CPU design.
All x86's are pipelined, and in fact use the absolute latest CPU design techniques. The Pentium 4, in fact, has pseudo-double clocked integer ALUs and hyper-threading. Neither of these are available in any other RISC CPU.
True, pc's are cheap, but thin clients are cheaper still. Having looked at such a system recently, I can say that replacing 25 pc's with new ones or replacing them with 28 terminals and a 4GB dual Xeon 2.8GHz server is about equally expensive.
But after a few years the savings kick in: you won't have to replace failing hd's, power supplies, cdroms, floppy drives and almost no memory. That's savings right there. Add to that the fact that terminals live longer than pc's. You'll have to replace the replacing pc long before you have to replace a terminal.
About the only things you need to replace with thin clients is the server and the monitors, keyboards and mice (the last 3 of which you'll have to do anyway, and the first is vastly cheaper that replacing those pcs).
Now factor in the ease of administration and see savings spiral up even more.
--
If Intel isn't spreading FUD about its 64 bit strategy, then this will be a turning point for AMD we will look back on in the future and say: "Wow Intel really screwed the pooch on that one".
;)
Fairly typical for ZDNet, Linux is either downplayed; or, as is the case in this article, ignored totally:
Currently, Itanium chips do not run regular Windows code well.
Windows software is designed to run on 32-bit systems.
'There hasn't been much OS support'.
Forget the number of years Linux has been running on a variety of 64 bit chips for years.
Articles like these are way too biased towards the Intel/Microsoft duopoly. I say go for it Intel, AMD can produce stable quality CPUs and you and Microsoft can say to each other: "No one will ever need more than 4GB of memory."
...is that their 64-bit solution requires a completely different instruction set. It's painful to switch to an Itanium from an x86 platform. On the other hand, AMD's 64-bit solution(x86-64) should be about as painless a transition as the move from 16-bit to 32-bit processors.
Of *course* Intel is going to argue that 64bit isn't required for desktop computers. If users make the leap to AMD's x86-64, Intel will have to scramble to build a chip of their own to support it. Also, if you start getting $100, $200, $300 64-bit chips out there, I'm sure the server market's gonna stop and ask "why the hell are we spending $10k per Itanium?"
Intel stands to lose if we move to 64-bit on desktops.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
No friggin way! They're going to go with AMD Opteron.
Cheap 64-bit computing is right around the corner, and Intel is going to be playing catch-up real soon now.
And with more and more people getting into editing their own videos, people are going to want 64-bit computing sooner than Intel is letting on.
Then again, I could be wrong. I'm wrong "alot" :)
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Just like CPU power, memory capacity is exceeding demand. I rememebr back in like 1993, I got a PC with 4MB in it. It was rpetty good for the day, but still I wanted more. I was always slamming into a memory wall. Then in 1998 I got a system with 128MB, a fair amount for the day. It was better now, I could run a number of apps together wiht minimal swapping but I was still limited. So some upgrades later we have the present day, where I have a gig. Now, memory is no issue, I can load whatever I like with no problems. I never deal with not having enough physical memory.
Now if you look at it historically, It was about the same amount of money for the 3 different ram points. However it isn't the same situation. Like I said, 4MB wasn't enough even for what I wanted to do then. 128MB was adiquate, but limiting. 1GB is more than a I need, half that would do fine and still not be very restrictive.
Over the years I have become disenchanted with Intel. Saying there is no need to migrate to 64 bit now is alot like Bill Gates saying "no one will ever need more than 640k". I have since then moved on to Sun machines and also looking into SGI equipment as well.
The biggest thing that got me started down this path was not only the 4gig limit but the fact that the PIII changed form factors so many times. The PIII started out as a slot 1, (buy a new motherboard) then socket 370, (buy another motherboard) then throw in some more cache. Sure it was still a socket 370 but now I had to buy another motherboard, again.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Even now I'm writing my chess engine for 64bit processors....
And the problem is not only 4G physical memory, but more than that, 4G physical address space. I've hit this boundry LOTs of times. While you don't have processor + OS support for a larger address space, there are certian jobs you could never do on a PC (ever tried to run gate-level simulations of large chips? Antenna and other microwave devices simulations? big spice simulations?.... doesn't intel know anything about scientific applications????)
Yet on the other hand, who needs a 3G pentimumIV with HT to run MS-Office?? Intel?
Unless you specially write your app to handle the oddities of handing 64GB (assuming the OS even allows you to) your limmited for 4GB per process since that's all you can address without resorting to the pentium's equivelant to EMS. The OS can hide the complexity and provide 64GB total but even then your stuck with 4GB per process.
OH, and expect some dirty tricks, we know AMD is gonna be ready to sell you 64 bit way before us, so, well ... you'll just see ;)
I am not expecting 'dirty tricks.' What I'm expecting is the eventual 'conspiracy theories' from the usual fanboys about why AMD is languishing in the market. As AMD steams ahead to a 64 bit desktop line that only a tiny slice of the market needs, their 'because we can do it, not because people will buy it' rollout will cost them bigtime. It might put them out of the business. Two years from now the whine will be 'Intel put AMD out of business by not moving ahead on the 64 bit desktop' when the truth will be, AMD were idiots for doing it, Intel held back for what made sense, etc. etc.
I think that the only reason that x86-64 rom AMD could fail is not because the processor is bad as much as the chipsets. If they can't provide good motherboards that allow me to add a ton of ram to the system (the real reason the upgrade to 64-bit IMO), then why go there? I want to run 8 gig Java VMs in x86 world.
Well, now that they're most recently Going out of business [slashdot.org], in steps IBM to save the day for them... a new line of iMacs is going to do insanely well, considering it's going to be the only fully-functional line of 64-bit personal computing, because I can pretty much guarantee Apple's going to have full-fledged 64-bit standardizing before anybody else. Apple's going to have an insane surge in users, a lot of the multimedia software that's been migrating to PCs is going to be happy with the better, faster and more powerful 64-bit hardware support and go back to developing for Macs... basically, Macs regain a lot of the status they've been falling behind in quickly.
I wouldn't bet the farm on this. The iMac was and is marketed at the average non-geek who couldn't care about CPU bit path, or memory addressing, or upgradability. And it probably will still be marketed at the non-geek when they go 64 bit.
Now the full on tower machines, those will be the machines to get for hot 64 bit CPU sex. not as cheap as the iMacs are, but they're a whole lot cheaper than say a Sun sparc machine, or other 64 bit box.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
You're mixing up 3 classes of computing machines.
... processors". This is not a mainframe, this is a different category. They also generally have very high inter-cpu memory transfer rates, for handling dependent parallel computations.
:)
Supercomputers are almost purely cpu number-crunching beasts. This is what you seem to think of as mainframes with "over a thousand
Most mainframes, like IBM's Z Series, have 24 to 36 CPUS. A mainframe is not about cpu performance, a mainframe is about data. A mainframe has system data throughput that puts almost any other system to shame. Historically, mainframes are good at supporting many simultaneously-connected users doing data queries and updates. (Yes, they run huge databases very well.)
And then you get Beowulf clusters (your Google remark, effectively), which are really chasing the supercomputer market, and not the mainframe market. Beowulf clusters care about a limited class of supercomputer applications, they are good where you need a lot of parallel number crunching, and have very little data dependency between parallel calculations, so you don't need a lot of inter-cpu communications.
Pick the type that's right for your job, and you'll be happy. Pick the wrong one, and you'll have nothing but problems.
And it helps if you're stuck-up intelligently, that way people will still hate you, but won't think you're stupid any more.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
Intel's claims are wholly out of touch with reality.
On a daily basis we're running into the Windows 2GB barrier with our next-generation content development and preprocessing tools.
If cost-effective, backwards-compatible 64-bit CPU's were available today, we'd buy them today. We need them today. It looks like we'll get them in April.
Any claim that "4GB is enough" or that address windowing extensions are a viable solution are just plain nuts. Do people really think programmers will re-adopt early 1990's bank-swapping technology?
Many of these upcoming Opteron motherboards have 16 DIMM slots; you can fill them with 8GB of RAM for $800 at today's pricewatch.com prices. This platform is going to be a godsend for anybody running serious workstation apps. It will beat other 64-bit workstation platforms (SPARC/PA-RISC/Itanium) in price/performance by a factor of 4X or more. The days of $4000 workstation and server CPU's are over, and those of $1000 CPU's are numbered.
Regarding this "far off" application compatibility, we've been running the 64-bit SuSE Linux distribution on Hammer for over 3 months. We're going to ship the 64-bit version of UT2003 at or before the consumer Athlon64 launch. And our next-generation engine won't just support 64-bit, but will basically REQUIRE it on the content-authoring side.
We tell Intel this all the time, begging and pleading for a cost-effective 64-bit desktop solution. Intel should be listening to customers and taking the leadership role on the 64-bit desktop transition, not making these ridiculous "end of the decade" statements to the press.
If the aim of this PR strategy is to protect the non-existant market for $4000 Itaniums from the soon-to-be massive market for cost-effective desktop 64-bit, it will fail very quickly.
-Tim Sweeney, Epic Games
If your a company and you make alot fat profits on your server chips(64bits & Xeons) , you don't want the price of those products going down. It's done all the time in the business. They keep their fastest line of processors out of the hands of the mainstream public so can charge triple the prices to rich corporate buyers that want the latest and best. I am just wondering how long Intel will wait to bring out an affordable Itanium. Any guesses?
I guess my point is that hundreds of millions of dollars are going to R&D for superfast processors, but the software industry (thankfully) isn't coming up for any mainstream uses for such a powerful processor. I say thankfully because North America has had about all of the mindless consumerism it can handle.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.