Are We Not Ready For 64-Bit?

Q3vi1 writes "The Inquirer posted an intriguing article about how Intel doesn't think that we'll be ready for mainstream 64-bit computing until 2007. Coupled with the fact that MS isn't supporting the Opteron yet for their Windows 2003 Server, we may see a delay in consumer applications for 64-bit computing. However, as this article states, some people don't really care and will just go for Linux and AMD as a nice marriage."

Comments

Well if history is any guide...

[west]

Apple will come out with a 64-bit OS X sometime in the next year (with the 970). Critics will say "Wow!", and then ignore it. Apple sales won't change a bit and three years later MS will come out with 64-bit computing to universal acclaim and the market will buy it like hotcakes...

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[questamor]

Scary bit is - while your comment made me laugh, it's probably more true than funny. bah.

Perhaps what the article really means is "Intel isn't ready for 64 bit computing and is scared shitless they can't do anything useful with it until 2007"

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[hhnerkopfabbeisser]

Nicholas Petreley's First Law of Computer Trade Journalism:
"No technology exists until Microsoft invents it."

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...who cares about Apple? If you`re got a business using 300 Wintel PCs, and Apple comes out with [insert something] - so what? You`d have to replace your hardware, software and experts. If [insert something] somes out for Wintel PCs then you just slowly upgrade them. No paradigm shift, no costly retraining, no girly pastel-blue overpriced PPC PCs.

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop rewriting history. People bought PC's because they were made by IBM and were "professional" (meaning they could not display colors, had a 80*25 screen, did not have sound capabilities, etc.).

IBM fucked up on licensing, and Microsoft took over from them. They then built on that position, locking product into product while at the same time keeping competitors out whenever they could.

Their products very frequently do not "do the job well enough" *at all*, but people use it anyway because "it is the standard".

Apples execution is way better than Microsoft too, but since it is not "the standard" people will happily ignore it. A few years later Microsoft will present the "first 64-bit OS" and everyone will praise them for being so incredibly innovative.

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[Xformer]

I'm sorry... had to re-read that one. At first glance, looked like "...until Microsoft breaks it."

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[NDPTAL85]

Its kind of hard to use all of the features of MS Outlook without Exchange as the email server. Office collaboration is what businesspeople want. Why is that so hard to accept?

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[coult]

2. Businesses arent going to buy iLamp servers: something with pretty colors but without RAID-5 isnt really a server, sorry.

Two words: Xserve RAID.

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you seriously think that Intel couldn't develop a 64 bit mainstream processor if it wanted to compete against AMD? It's not as if AMD did anything really exotic with the Opteron, just slapped together some 64 bit instructions and registers.

The real explanation is that Intel is trying to push Itanium as their sole 64 bit platform and it will probably take until 2007 for that technology to become mature enough and cheap enough to be viable for consumer desktops.

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[RoLi]

Yes, they've got the monopolist's desktop advantage now, but they got it because they've put out products that, while far from perfect, did the job well enough to serve as the focal point for PC development for the last couple decades.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The only reason they got their OS-domination on x86 is because IBM gave it to them and Asian hardware makers made their platform popular.

People would still use DOS if there were no alternative on cheap hardware - oh well, people did use DOS for half a decade when everybody else was already using graphical OSes (Apple, Amiga, Unix-GUIs).

But that changed, Linux is available on cheap hardware, too and is itself cheaper, more secure, stable and with Opteron clearly more advanced. That's why Microsoft is so scared of Linux and not of Unix or MacOS. Microsoft has already lost their dominating position on x86-servers.

Opteron is just another nail into the coffin of Windows as a server and will also have a big effect on the desktop.

Re:Well if history is any guide...

[walt-sjc]

Well, if we really want to pay attention to history, there is NOT a lot of room for RAM to grow. There is only a 4 - 16X growth capacity here. Just a few short years ago, 32M was a lot of memory, and was the typical amount sold on a new PC. I'd hate to see some funky expanded memory crap like we had back in the 640K barrier days. The days of 4G machines are NOT far off.

Note that most standard PC's can't handle the full 4G anyway due to video and other expansion cards snarfing larger and larger chunks of the address space.

We can learn a lot from the IDE folks about how to NOT anticipate the future as year after year we kept slamming into the limits of the spec-of-the-day causing all sorts of problems.

A larger problem than memory is PCI bus bandwidth. Before 64 bit processors can really shine, we need a better bus. Hell, the current generation of PCI can't even handle today's 32 bit processors well, especially in SMP boxen.

Honestly....

[johndeaux]

99.9% of the population do not use the currently level of computing power available. As a consultant I get the question all the time "Do I need to upgrade to a faster machine" when all the person is doing is a little word processing and surfing the net.

Re:Honestly....

[b0r1s]

The people who need 64bit already know that they need 64bit. Gamers, home users, small businesses, and the like aren't in this category.

Remember that the primary reason for changing to 64bit isn't speed or cost, but rather the ability to have a much larger address space, which serves to remove the 4GB memory limit. These are the people who will want 64bit, and these are the people who already KNOW that they want it, they're just waiting patiently for it to be available (and for their OS of choice to be ported - correctly).

Re:Honestly....

[realnowhereman]

On what basis do you advance that? If you mean 99.9% of consumers do not use their CPU's at 100% all the time then I'll agree. However, most consumers are still not happy with the speed of their computer. The TV still starts working faster, the washing machine just goes, the PC does not. Stick a CPU meter on your desktop and work away for an hour. The day it never hits 100% then we've reached computing nirvana.

The CPU is used to it's fullest level by everyone. Being able to cope with the spike in demand is why we need the fast CPU's.

Also, everyone should bear in mind that there is no inherant speed increase involved with 64-bit computing. Read this for a good explaination of 64-bit computing.

Re:Honestly....

[sql*kitten]

Remember that the primary reason for changing to 64bit isn't speed or cost, but rather the ability to have a much larger address space, which serves to remove the 4GB memory limit.

To you or I, yes. But plenty of people will buy 64-bit just for the bragging rights. Anyone who does case modding falls into this category. AMD will make a fortune if they include a flashy "64-bit eXXXtreme!" sticker with every processor sold.

Re:Honestly....

[JWSmythe]

When I worked in a computer store, 200Mhz was the fastest you could get. We had customers with 386's, 486's (and all the knockoffs like TI, AMD, IBM, and Cyrix), and Pentium's..

Everyone wants the bigger, better, faster.. We'd have people constantly upgrading from 133Mhz to 150Mhz or 166Mhz..

I always loved the reaction on customers faces when they went from 133Mhz to 150Mhz. They'd turn on the computer in the showroom area, and say "Wow, it's so much faster." They're judging that by moving the mouse around in circles. I could have told them that I made their computer so much faster, and not have even done the upgrade. :)

Win98 runs nicely on the lower end machines. But even now, I see users that want 2Ghz machines to run it on. Why? Because it's bigger, better, and faster. They want the illusion that writing their word document will go faster on a faster machine.

Even now, writing this, I wouldn't know if I was on a 133 or a 1.1Ghz (I'm on an Athlon 1.1Ghz).. I have a reason for having a faster machine though. Not for the blazing speed that I can open Mozilla. I frequently compile kernels and applications on my workstations..

At one time, I had a 133Mhz Pentium with Win98 on it on my desk. Since I used my Linux machine all the time, it was really a decoration. I'd let people use it to browse the net. They'd never say one word about it being slow.

Consumers are suckers for having bigger, better, faster.. It's the same reason that automobile advertisments still make like 150HP is big. I saw the new turbocharged PT Cruiser ad.. Something like 200HP. Good for a little station wagon, but they're making it out to be the end-all of sports cars.. It's going to be embarassing for someone who falls for the commercial, and then gets blown off the road by every TransAm, Camaro, Mustang, and all the modified (and some unmodified) Asian imports. Oh, did I forget to mention the European imports? I intentionally left out the higher end cars like Corvettes and Vipers. Those are a given. It should do a beautiful job of keeping up with the Yugo's, and diesel Escorts. :) Likewise, there's always the argument that they don't care about speed. Well, why spend the extra money on the bigger, better, faster??

Because consumers are suckers.

Personally, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a 64bit AMD to put Linux on.. I have a few applications that could use the extra power. I also have quite a few machines that could care less.. I upgraded them recently from AMD 450Mhz machines, just because the machines were getting old, and we were having other failures (hard drives and power supplies dying of old age).

I strongly suspect that since Microsoft isn't ready to support it, we'll (*NIX admins) be the strongest buyers of it for a while..

But I think the disaster with NT on Alpha proved to Microsoft that users won't go to bigger better processors just because they're there, if they're exotic. From what I understand, besides internal fighting with DEC, they just saw very little need to continue the line for a small fraction of their users. Intel and AMD are staying with the same line, which makes it feel like a safe upgrade. They just upgrade, reinstall their OS, and they're good to go.. All their old apps work, and nothing significant changes..

Re:Honestly....

[maraist]

Front Side bus mainly applies to memory hog applications (which of course the 64bit issue can applies to this as well).. But when we look at speedups for games such as counter-strike, what we see is that the speedup really comes from adding an extra set of registers.

What the x86 line needs is not more memory, cleaner instruction set, or better memory management, but more registers.

I'm somewhat upset that AMD didn't make it's x86-64 use 32 registers (the defacto standard these days). Morever, given that Intel added a ne w operating mode for use with SSE, I don't see why AMD couldn't have added one that merely provided the 32 registers for x86-32. They would have a HUGE jump on Intel with hardly any additional cost. Most compilers implement algorithms that are register-set-size nuetral, so it should not be a dramatic rewrite for anybody's compiler. Granted, you muck-up most of the op-codes, requiring more bits per register, but that's what the new mode is for.

Going to 64bit, otoh is an enormous change.. Not to mention, I don't believe AMD gives you the option of using the extra register without requiring 8 bytes per pointer (thereby losing the space-efficiency of 32bit coding).

While I'm happy to see any progress, I'm disappointed that the root-canal type changes that will be necessary to support x86-64 aren't going to bring the PC up to even 1990's technology standards.

Of course intel is going to say that

[jbellis]

they're counting on $3000 IA-64 chips to preserve their profit margin, but if 64 bit catches on in the mainstream, they're going to have to follow AMD with x86-64 at much lower margins.

microsoft have power of life an death over opteron

[Miguel de Icaza]

I think the problem is that if microsoft don't adopt opteron then AMD will not get the volumes needed to substantially undercut the price of itanium - if it isn't highly price/performance competitive with intel/sparc then your average linux shops simply won't adopt it.

So once again microsoft have the power to crush a fantastic new technology before it even gets off the ground .

like a weight looming overhead - have to say i know that feeling :^)

article is unclear

[thadeusPawlickiROX]

I'm a bit confused about this article... it claims

It has often been said in the PC hardware industry that applications are not demanding enough to drive upgrades. The dilemma of applications makers is they need to produce software that will run on most people's computers at the time it is released. Another problem is that slower machines will still run most applications, albeit slower than optimally. Perhaps AMD and Intel should pay software companies bonuses for releasing CPU-cycle hungry games and applications that simply do not run well on anything but very recent hardware.

By that reasoning, Intel and AMD, along with other CPU manufacturers, should not have to continue any research on new chips; instead programmers should be optimizing code to run better on the same architecture. And if that was completely true, why would 32 bit be necessary, or 16 for that matter? I think the point would not be to "pay" developers to make software for a new architecture. I think that if there were signifacant advantages to this architecture, it wouldn't be necessary to bribe developers. Also, with most companies going along with whatever viewpoint M$ has, of course there will be some resistance to the new move. Hopefully the linux projects will prove that there is an advantage to the 64 bit, and then Intel be stuck with their foot in their mouth.

Finally!

[argmanah]

What to tell the pointy-haired boss:

Linux finally has a feature M$ Windows doesn't have, 64 bit support! It's why we need to switch all our servers to Linux!

Re:Finally!

[lavalyn]

No, no, MS still is easier to administer remotely.

Just about any average user at home could do whatever they need to do!

Opposite speculation

[certron]

Here's something in German that you might want to run through: http://www.heise.de/ct/03/07/026/

Yes, go translate it, unless you can read and understand German, or just don't care to read it. :-)

4th paragraph under what babelfish translates as "Imbedding"

"Nevertheless one will not only be able to select to the planned Launch between different 64-Bit-Linuxen. Microsoft announced in the meantime, one day before the planned launching of a vessel, thus on 21 April to bring the Windows-XP-Server-2003-Version out for AMDs 64-Bit-Prozessor officially."

Looks like the story is still up in the air...

Apple (rumors) Thinks We're Ready

[your_mother_sews_soc]

Just yesterday a few people suggested on apple.slashdot.org that the next release of OS X, code named 'Panther', may include 64-bit support. Apple may think we're ready.

But do we need it? Will the benefits outweigh the cost. I think Apple's offloading of CPU tasks to the graphics board for Quartz Extreme is an example of just one of the alternatives for speeding up machines. Offload more tasks to other intelligent subsystems.

I am ready, since when the 64-bit machines come out I can pick up a 32-bit on the cheap!

Re:Apple (rumors) Thinks We're Ready

[truenoir]

Maybe it'll be useful for putting obscene amounts of RAM in Shake workstations, or to make spiffy next gen XServes.
Perhaps they simply want to factor in time to adapt. Remember how long it took to finally switch the OS over to PPC-native entirely?
Or perhaps it's a "why not" when looking at a new CPU. "Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it". The 970 at least has lots more bandwidth on the bus too, which is perhaps the greater advantage to the media-centric Macintosh.
That and bragging rights ^_^

Re:Mmmm.... 64 bit

[b0r1s]

Yea, some people need more than 4 gigs of memory per process. That's just not easy to do with 32bit.

Why would I want to move to 64 bit computing?

[DeadSea]

It seems to me that moving to a 64 bit instruction set has the potential to really slow down your computer. Every time you add extra bits, you add extra overhead for simple instructions.

I'd be interested to know how many operations on today's computers actually even use up all 32 bits available to them. I'd expect those situations to be rare: Matrix math operations, some addressing.

64 bit computing might speed up your data processing if you are a scientist, but it would probably slow down business applications.

In general, scientists that need high processing speeds can buy supercomputer time, or extra 32 bit machines. Why would we want to move to 64 bit on the desktop?

Re:Why would I want to move to 64 bit computing?

[LordHunter317]

I'd be interested to know how many operations on today's computers actually even use up all 32 bits available to them. I'd expect those situations to be rare: Matrix math operations, some addressing.

How about every time you load a memory address or deference a pointer, since in 32-bit protected mode all you use is 32-bit addresses.

And oh, w/64-bit processors come 64-bit pipelines and the ability to use 64-bit instructions and data. The slowdown is nil.

Re:Why would I want to move to 64 bit computing?

[molarmass192]

That's not exactly true. You're forgetting that the entire bus architecture would be 64 bit. There wouldn't be any slowdown since there's no basis for comparison. The upside is that really big (ie. > 4G) file operations and double integer ops should be much faster. Think video and databases for apps that would benefit greatly. I agree that for mom sending email and surfing the web, there's no real incentive to invest in this kind of hardware. However, for data mining, this is a big deal. It'll be interesting to see if a peripheral market develops around the 64 bit arch. Should prove interesting!

Re:Why would I want to move to 64 bit computing?

[larien]

It's actually fairly true. If you move to 64-bit computing, registers take up twice as much space, as do some instructions. As a result, you need more memory to cope with the increase in space required. It's not always a doubling; experiences with SPARC (it can run 32-bit & 64-bit natively on the same CPU with backward compatibility to 32-bit programs) show there is an increased memory requirement for running processes.

People might say that memory is cheap right now, but that's not the problem; the main limitation is the L2 cache; if the core of the process increases in size sufficiently to be larger than cache sizes, performance will suffer. This is partly why Intel is ramping up the L2 cache on Itanium 2; it needs it to keep performance up. The other reason is that it needs to compete with SPARC, Power-4 and PA-RISC in the server space which all have at least 4MB L2 cache, with 8MB being common. IIRC, newer PA-RISC CPUs have 32MB L2 cache (although they are dual-core, so it's really more like 16MB/CPU).

Fact is, most normal users aren't pushing the envelope of 32-bit computing yet, so consumers don't need 64-bit. It is desperately needed in scientific computing & servers where the 4GB hard limit is becoming a problem, but these are not "normal" users.

Personally, I'll go to 64-bit (well, other than the Ultra 30 I have) when it's a good idea for me to do so, either because I need the extra address space (unlikely in the short term; I'm hardly using my 768MB at the moment) or the price/performance is right.

I Predict:

[big_groo]

Bill Gates (2003):

"4GB addressable memory ought to be enough for everyone."

Re:I Predict:

[lavalyn]

Bill Gates (January 2038):

"32 bits to store the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 ought to be enough for everybody."

Not surprised

[arvindn]

The last time we ran this story, Intel said they were "in no hurry". So I'm not surprised they haven't changed their mind exactly one month later ;-)

Opteron just needs time

[asv108]

I think once the Opteron gets out in the public and people see the advantages of AMD's new chip, MS will be forced to port windows to the new chipset. Linux will be there for release. I think the opteron's growth will be more of a slow and steady climb as people realize the performance benefits rather than a huge initial release. My biggest concern is price, not windows availability. Certainly the opteron will have many advantages and certainly be a bargain over the Itanium.

If this current situation shows anything, it is what happens to companies when they make deals with Microsoft. AMD's Chairman and former CEO Jerry Sanders agreed to testify on Bill G's behalf for the antitrust trial as long as MS ported windows to Opteron and Athlon 64.

The article fails to mention Apple ...

[adzoox]

The alternative 64 bit computing article mentioned is inferring that Linux will be the only 64 bit OS & Opteron, the only 64 bit Processor. I think Apple is very close to releasing the PowerPC 970 which is 64 bit (and 32 bit backwards compatible) - the new release of OS X (Panther) Apple WWDC Panter Release is most likely a 64 bit compatible implementation of the Mac OS.

As Apple has always been forward thinking to gain market share and attention, I think this will be yet another rush of sales for them, especially if Intel offerings start to have DRM built into the chips and continue to stretch processor pipelines to absurd stage numbers >20.

Re:Intel? Or Wintel?

[abhisarda]

Right now AMD says its delaying its Athlon64 processor because it wants MS to release its 64 bit OS. But there might also be yield issues that AMD has not sorted out yet.
AMD is releasing its Opteron in April, depending on the response it gets, MS might plow more resources to get its 64 bit OS for AMD as soon as it can. 64 bit computing is one of the growth areas that MS cannot afford to ignore.

you havn't used photoshop or autocad lately

[Brigadier]

I dont think home users make a good example of users. I consult primarily with engineering, architectural and graphics firms. Programs like AutoCAD, Revit, 3DStudio, Photoshop and a bunch of number crunching engineering apps i've never heard of. All of which are dying to use 64 bit systems. not only that more and more applications are using a more complex and demanding UI. Have you used word or excell lately ?

TCPA/Palladium

[_Pablo]

I just hope AMD realises that the platform should belong to the owner and keep Opteron/Athlon64 free of TCPA. This together with a Palladium free Linux would be the major reason for me to leave the comfort of the Wintel platform.

But I fear if AMD state they are remaining TCPA free they've got no chance of seeing a Palladium enabled Windows 200x on Opteron/Athlon64 - goodbye mass(ive) market.

I fail to see what the big deal is...

[Rorschach1]

I've got two 64-bit machines at home, myself - an SGI Indigo2 and a DEC AlphaStation 200. Yeah, they're seriously out of date now, but they're still nice little workstations. *nix has been doing just fine on 64 bits for some time now. I do have to put up with all sorts of 'cast to pointer from integer of different size' warnings when I compile stuff, but I'm able to run 99% of the stuff I'd run on an x86 box on the Alpha.

So,

[jointm1k]

Microsoft and Intel think we're not ready for 64 bit systems eh? I bet they think we still are doing just fine with that 640 K RAM. :)

using 64-bit since 1994 in UNIX

[peter303]

Its really nice to break the two-gig barrier in program buffers. Sun-SPARC and SGI-MIPS have been 64-bit since 1994.

Mandrake..

[Bush_man10]

I wanted to find some more information myself about Linux supporting 64-bit processors and this is what I found. Mandrake will have support by early 2003, I'm not sure if it's done now or not but it should be nearly done. Redhat is also offering support for the X86-64, check out the news release. Personally I think this is a great oppertunity for Linux to catch up to MS in market share. I look forward to upgrading...

Who cares?

[molarmass192]

As I have been MS free since 2000, I really couldn't care less what they do or don't do. As for Intel, here's some news for them, they DO NOT have a monopoly like their special friend. I'll gladly purchase an AMD Opteron to run my shiny new Linux 2.6 kernel sometime this fall while the WinTel boys play their reindeer games. In fact, dare I say it, I'm GLAD this is happening. Hopefully, this will finally show Intel that their future is not tied to MS as it was in the past.

Well

[secondsun]

Do I need 64 bits? No.

Do I want competition to the Xeon in 4 way systems? (price and spec them, it is insane! 1.6 Ghz and 1200 a pop). Hell^yeah.

Opteron is not about 64 bits, it is just a nice addition. Opteron is about competition in the low end server/high end desktop market (which is intel dominated btw). The reaosn intel is naysaying 64 bits is because they have no competing thec in this area other than the Xeon which has terrible price/performance numbers.

Re:Well

[D4Vr4nt]

Actually.. Xeon 2.0 512K $359.00 Xeon 2.4 512K $384.00 CDN $ too..

64bit Game Server

[aliens]

If they're cheap enough, 64bit will help gaming in a big way. The counter-strike team reported a ~30% increase in performance just by recompiling. Granted CS doesn't need a cray to run, but Battlefield 1942 has had some 64 player servers which I believe needed dual Athlons. 64 people is fun, but how bout 128?

Not only that, but with an (relatively)inexpensive 64bit chip out there I could see more servers popping up to play on. More servers hosting large games would be great! Feed my addiction please.

Not entirely

[BoomerSooner]

The Opteron will still run x86 code fine so a install that will work on any x86 system will still work on the Opteron (although wasting the 64bit capability).

Although there is a reason it's called Wintel.

We'll be ready when...

[LinuxParanoid]

Your view of 'when are we ready for 64-bits' largely depends A) on how much money you are willing to spend on RAM and B) how soon your OS supports more than 4 GB of RAM on potential 64-bit hardware (PAE hacks notwithstanding).

If you're willing to spend $200 for RAM in your system, then when 4 GB of RAM is cheaper than $200, you'll basically be wanting a 64-bit system (PAE hacks notwithstanding).

With pricewatch.com showing 1 GB of PC133 SDRAM going for as little as $120, I'd guess that another 4x drop in RAM prices would lead to substantial consumer demand for 64-bit hardware.** And that doesn't even include the demand for 4+GB RAM now in database applications. Whatever the case, this would seem to be earlier than 2007. Unless Microsoft doesn't get its act together (they were pretty late with 32-bit 386 support, IIRC)... which wouldn't be such a bad thing, for Linux at least. But I wouldn't count on that.

--LP

** Yes yes, technically you probably need to spend a bit more to get higher density RAM so that you can fill or exceed 4 GB given the limited number of memory slots available in your system.

In other news...

[rkischuk]

...the RIAA and MPAA have issued a joint statement that consumers are not ready for the power of file-sharing networks, and should be content with CDs and DVDs for the foreseeable future.

Size not Speed.

[dmaxwell]

Multimedia editing is a desktop app that can make good use of 64 bits. It isn't uncommon to to have uncompressed DV captures 17GB in size. Add effects and a few edits and the address space of a 32-bit machine can start to hurt in a hurry. The end result will have to be compressed as well. Yes there are ways to cope with it but it re-introduces the segment offset nightmares of old school x86 programming. Also memory sizes on end user desktops are increasing. Anything more than 2GB on an x86 box starts getting painful. Yes, I know they can `technically' handle 4GB but kludgery starts setting in at 2GB.

"Mom" is starting to use this "PC Thingy" to make home movies. I see "Mom" needing 64 bits before long.

64 bit? Old news.

[Viol8]

64 bit server computing has been around for at least a decade. I was using a 64 bit DEC alpha
box back in 1994. Why is it that whenever middle aged or even old technology appears on in the PC
world its suddenly a Big Deal? I realise that Joe Sixpack won't have ever heard of 64bit (or probably even be able to spell it)
but surely the more technologically savvy types who read this site should know better?

Re:64 bit? Old news.

[Sloppy]

Why is it that whenever middle aged or even old technology appears on in the PC world its suddenly a Big Deal?

It's a big deal because your Alpha box was expensive and therefore relatively few people had them.

Technology isn't just about capability, it's also about capability/cost.

Re:neither has my grandmother. she also doesn't ca

[Surak]

Can you please explain to those of us who clearly don't know any better why certain PC applications are "dying" for 64-bit processors? Hint: they won't magically become faster.

Addressable memory. Right now the limit is 4GB. With Windows XP, the OS sets 2GB aside for the OS, so apps only get 2GB, and that's shared across all the apps.

For word processing and surfing the net as it currently is now, none of this matters.

But if you want rich multimedia content, the ability to do serious 3D imaging on the fly (think 3D operating systems) and the like, you're going to need more RAM. The only way to get that is with a 64-bit chip.

The AutoCAD and 3D Studio and Photoshop apps the parent poster mentioned *are* dying for more RAM. I have 3D models that are pushing that 2GB limit.

different world

[Psykechan]

Nintendo moved away from 64-bit (Nintendo 64) back to 32-bit (Gamecube, Gameboy Advance) and Atari's 64-bit Jaguar failed in the market. This is what they're probably basing their predictions on. /joke

Seriously though, I don't think that the move towards a 64-bit desktop needs to happen tomorrow but it is going to be soon. When Apple starts showing systems with >4GB RAM, graphic designers will flock to them... wait, never mind.

Re:neither has my grandmother. she also doesn't ca

[kasperd]

2GB, and that's shared across all the apps.

Linux can do better than that. In Linux you get 3GB per process. :-)

Re:microsoft have power of life an death over opte

[13Echo]

Yeah, but we'll see just how long Microsoft ignores Opteron when everyone starts buying low-cost servers based on Linux and Opteron. They will have no choice but to adopt it. Even then, it will be growing on the desktop.

Keep in mind that these processors are going to be *replacements* for the current line of consumer-grade AMD stuff... Not Intel server chips. Not SPARC. As long as AMD continues to beat Intel to the punch in terms of performance and features at a low price, I don't think it will be a problem... And that's exactly what they have in mind.

Re:Were we ready for 32bit in 80s?

[aksansai]

The 80386 processor introduced more than just 32-bit register addressing. It was also the first processor to support the protected mode interface to the processor and not to mention the ability to "virtualize" memory by paging to another medium. Windows 3.0 took advantage of the new features of the processor while still being a 16-bit operating system.

Nonetheless, I think the basics of 64-bit computing are solid for the server arena, but when you examine the Opteron processor (and the x86-64 architecture), AMD offers alot of simple performance benefits by simply assisting problems associated with register starvation (the more the merrier, right?) When you take this into consideration, any application that works with large chunks of data (be it 32-bit for Opteron's legacy mode, or native 64-bit) - it results in faster processing time. Compiling the Linux kernel should be faster with all those handy dandy general purpose registers that come with the Opteron.

I believe Intel understands what it is talking about, however - Intel has done an extraordinary job in predicting the market and following demand. However, in the case, I think Intel is purposefully leaving out the x86-64 implementation in their consideration. Early Itanium benchmarks (even the Itanium 2) show that the processor isn't up to snuff in most instances, and to compensate, Intel simply throws 2M (or even more) worth of cache to help the little guy out.

AMD, on the other hand, is not waiting for a certain time to flip the big switch for the consumers. By incorporating native support for all legacy 32-bit application code in the processor, mainstream consumers will be adopting 64-bit computing without necessarily utilizing it for what it was intended for, BUT they will enjoying the architectural benefits as a result.

Exactly

[apankrat]

Who cares about 64 bits if the mainstream applications are written in a way that keeps wasting CPU power left and right without much care about peformance or efficient design ? Twice as large addressing space. Ok, so what ?

The one of the only few areas where 64 bits will make an actual tangible difference is a crypto and OS themselves, but these would not probably be a factor enough to speed the introduction of 64 bits CPU.

I mean if the money Intel spent on R&D would've gone on to the (re-)eduction of applicaiton designers, we would've still be doing just fine with old'n'trusty Pentiums. Slightly exagerrated, of course, but you got the point :)

POWER4

[ltwally]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the PowerPC/G4 based off of the POWER4 architecture... but with all the 64-bit (as well as several other "high-end" features) stripped out?

Anyhoo, I know 64-bit sounds nice and all... But my question is: will moving from 64-bit integers, floats, and memory addresses actually improve performance? To my understanding of processor architecture, the answer is definitely 'maybe.'

If the 'new' processor just adds 64-bit extensions, and doesn't actually optimize further than the previous generation, then your 'new' 64-bit chip is now handling data that is twice as large... and probably doesn't need to be twice as large. I mean, really... how often does any of our software make use of 64-bit integers or floats? How often do you need to break the 4GB memory barrier? Sure, years down the road these limitations (especially the memory) will be problems... but for right now, why get all hyped over 64-bit when it will do nothing but double the size of everything?

Personally, for the time being, I'd much rather see highly optimized and blazing fast 32-bit processors on the market. Leave the 64-bit for when I actually need over 4 gigs of memory.

Come on guys.... you know I'm right. Unless you're in the scientific fields that use huge numbers and insane gobs of memory, 64-bit data paths will be wasted cpu-real-estate.

Re:POWER4

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the PowerPC/G4 based off of the POWER4 architecture... but with all the 64-bit (as well as several other "high-end" features) stripped out?

You're wrong. The G4 is basically a PowerPC G3 with an 'Altivec' vector unit.

Come on guys.... you know I'm right. Unless you're in the scientific fields that use huge numbers and insane gobs of memory, 64-bit data paths will be wasted cpu-real-estate.

And 640K of RAM should be enough for everybody.

Re:POWER4

[mmol_6453]

There's a really interesting article over at Ars Technica that discusses performance issues and what AMD does about them in their x86-64 architecture.

Re:POWER4

[rutledjw]

Come on guys.... you know I'm right.

I would NEVER post something like that on /. - you're just begging for it. Here's why i think you're wrong.

Why do we want/need 64-bit computing? Well, there's the standard scientific computing answers, large batch jobs, etc. Of course the home user has such great need for those capabilities. They also have enormous need for more than 4GB of RAM.

Yeah, right. /sarcasm

Here's where we WILL want that kind of computing power. Increased graphics capabilities for games and multimedia. Those 2 things are graphics and memory intensive and would benefit from expanded capability. Those who are really hard-core gamers and love the multimedia stuff are among the only elements driving new PC sales. They want all the latest on those fronts.

So if we do get 64-bit, that's who'll buy and use it. I do mostly server-side stuff and _I_ don't really see the need at my company. A good 2-way 32-bit machine running linux can handle most apps we're building. You just scale horizontally to add capacity.

It's a wierd day when the home users who may be the ones still running compies of Code Red are driving new tech in the microprocessor world...

Re:POWER4

[Queer Boy]

How often do you need to break the 4GB memory barrier? Sure, years down the road these limitations (especially the memory) will be problems... but for right now, why get all hyped over 64-bit when it will do nothing but double the size of everything?

Of course if I was used to using a PC anymore I would probably think something similar. However since I use, and have more and more friends that use, Macs I have a different view.

My G4 is maxed out with 1.5 GB of RAM. I have just begun playing around with MPEG2 video. When creating a 4.6 GB DVD, it's pretty average for me to completely eat up that 1.5GB and have to start using swap. Two memory manufacturers (Samsung and someone else) have announced 4GB RAM modules. With some of Apple's prime markets being digital video and effects and scientific markets, the ability to break the RAM limit alone is worthwhile enough reason to go to 64-bit.

Re:Were we ready for 32bit in 80s?

[gilesjuk]

It's not so much if we're ready, it's which 64-bit chip are we ready for.

I believe AMD's chip is the best for the home user, Itanium will be too power hungry. You'll never see an Itanium notebook in my opinion as the design isn't a real world solution.

The masses using a PC as an entertainment hub in the living room will only happen when PCs are nearly silent, But the way we're going they never will be.

Aye. We are ready.

[mike9010]

Are we ready for 64-bit on the desktop? yes. Do we need it? No, but that isn't the point of a lot of computer hobbyists. Most of us don't really need the latest video card from ATi or nVidia. Mose of us don't need the latest processor from AMD or Intel. But we still buy the latest and the greatest. Why? Could be a matter of manhood, or for the woman, womanhood. Whatever reason it is for this phenomenon, there is no doubt that it happens. Yes, we are ready, and no, we don't need it, but the hobbyist will still buy them if the average computer consumer won't.

i don't get it

[JustKidding]

MS already has a 64 bit OS: NT 3.51
i have 2 DEC Alpha stations that where running it when i got them (needless to say, i got rid of NT very quickly).

How come MS can't do it anymore? i realise that 64 Alpha isn't quite the same as i64, but really, how hard can it be?

Re:neither has my grandmother. she also doesn't ca

[Surak]

Amount of memory in the average desktop RIGHT NOW.

Think about your argument, oh, I dunno, say 10 years ago. The average PC had just 4 MB of RAM. A few poeple went to 8 or 16MB or even 32 MB.

Back then, there were a lot of people, just like you saying that putting more than 32 MB in a PC just didn't make sense, you wouldn't gain any performance out of much more than that.

Think back, say 15 years ago when IBM said that nobody would ever need to 386, it was just too powerful.

Anybody saying that we don't need more than 2GB is as short-sighted as Bill Gates saying 640K oughta be enough for anybody.

Re:neither has my grandmother. she also doesn't ca

[steven_r]

Windows Xp Pro can be set up to allow 3GB for the user address space. This gives some applications a little more breathing room, although it doesnt move the ceiling that far.

The main problem I'm coming across with the limited address space is fragmentation of the free space. You can easily get to a point where the is still large amount of free address space available but there are no spaces large enough to allocate the chunk of memory of the size you want.

See http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platform/server/PAE /PAEmem.asp for info on the /3GB switch.

Look up a combination of "LARGEADDRESSAWARE, boot.ini, bootcfg, /3GB" on msdn to find out more...

cheers,

Steve.

Intel propaganda

[Tumbleweed]

What Intel is really saying here is that INTEL isn't ready for mainstream 64-bit computing.

Both AMD (Hammer) & IBM (PPC970) 64-bit processors will run 32-bit applications with no modification, and at more than full speed, unlike Intel's Itanium processors. By the time Intel gets around to a 'mainstream' 64-bit processor, both AMD & IBM will have years of experience with mainstream 64-bit CPUs, and in the CPU game, experience is invaluable. Then again, watching someone else make the mistakes often has an advantage, too, and I doubt Intel is going out of business anytime soon.

Not really IMHO

[specialized_sworks]

Multimedia editing does not read in the entire file at one time to work on. It reads in a few frames at a time from the file. Are there any operations that require more than 4GB of main memory for video apps?

64bit is needed for large (ASIC synthesis for example) jobs that require you to load the entire image into memory at once. Yes, you can break that job into smaller chunks, but then the complexity gets harder to manage.

Or I could be totally wrong. :)
-W

Floating Point

[Detritus]

Most floating point calculations are already done in 64-bit (double precision) or 80-bit (extended precision). 32-bit (single precision) floating point is of limited usefulness on commodity Intel hardware.

64bit!! Yeah!

[Mulletproof]

I was ready for 64 bit a while ago, bu sadly, the Nintendo 64 didn't live up to my expectations. I'm sure somebody has already put Linux on it though ;)

Translation

[bill_mcgonigle]

Intel has worked out that their Itantium/Pentium performance/cost manufacturing curves cross in 2007.

Also, asking the question presupposes there's an answer. "Mom, are you ready for 64-bit computing?" "64 what?" Most people don't know or care what their system architecture is, they just want their apps to work.

Which is why 2007 is really too late - we need a 64-bit time_t in production by 2007 so that 30-year mortgages can be properly calculated. (32-bit time_t values run out in 2038) Remember, that's how the Y2K problem was 'discovered'. If Y2K is any gauge, 4 years is about how long people will need to get all the systems fixed, so we ought to be getting started just about now.

Thanks, Apple.

Re:neither has my grandmother. she also doesn't ca

[coats]

Consider, of course, that the average amount of RAM in use in deskop PCs 256MB. Few people go above 512MB, even for 3D rendering. And, very, very, very few people have 1GB.

Your numbers are a year out-of-date, I think.

My wife is an attorney (corporate health care law; if you want to buy an HMO, she's your girl!), and found that to get decent performance with her day-to-day work (given the characteristics of MS -- and adobe! -- bloatware), she needed to go with 1 GB RAM; 512K was not enough.

And for what I do (serious environmental modeling), having to live within the limits of dinky little 2 GB files is ridiculous. And we wind up doing the analysis on desktops instead of directly on the supercomputers... Thank God (or Linux, or Alan...) for Large File Summit support in the recent Linux releases!

It's more ram, more ram, more ram

[ceswiedler]

The thing AMD needs to do is put 16 or 32 DIMM slots in the motherboard for their 64-bit processor. As many others have pointed out, RAM is dirt cheap for up to 1GB DIMMs. I could buy a 64-bit processor and motherboard plus 32GB of RAM for a reasonable sum.

That's 32 gigabytes. Just the disk caching speedups alone would be worthwhile. My firm belief is the only reason these huge RAM sizes aren't common is the 4GB physical / 3GB per process limits of current 32 bit OSs.

Re:microsoft have power of life an death over opte

[mitcharoni]

Microsoft was the primary developer of the x86-64 instruction set along with AMD. They basically told AMD "Here's what we want in a 64-bit instruction set" and AMD produced. They have a vested interest to see Opteron/Hammer succeed. They only developed a version of Windows for Itanium because they felt they had to, not because they wanted to. Itanium is just a weird fit with Microsoft.

Even if that were not the case, x86 is not going anyhere anytime soon. So Hammer will run anything Microsoft puts out just fine. Hammer will kick the crap out of ANYTHING Intel puts on the market and is doing so right now.

And Microsoft will be coming out with x86-64 versions of Windows, rest assured. That is not speculation.

If there's ever anything Microsoft understands, its "volume" and "price".

Two Words

[dlakelan]

Garbage Collection

"Real Languages" use garbage collection (ha, just trolling).

Seriously, the ability to use an address space that is gignormous is really worth a lot for garbage collection algorithms. For example, you can allocate into reserved portions of the address space and then the type of an object can be determined by its location. You can also use copying collectors without a big hit. Reserving half your address space for copying sucks at 2GB, it doesn't matter much for 17179869184 GB.

Also the "single address space" operating system concept needs more research. However, to get that research going now would require low cost plentiful hardware.

The fact is, there are tons of useful reasons to have 64 bits, we just don't know what they are because we haven't had 64 bits on a commodity platform.

If you have 64 bit addresses and about 1GB of flash RAM, you can completely avoid all the trouble of traditional filesystems. Have your OS use the disk like one big area of RAM, buffer into the NV RAM, keep all the metadata in NV ram, and use a journaled approach for metadata. Speed and simplicity instead of B-trees and inodes and such.

There are all kinds of reasons for 64 bit.

Who's excited about 64-bit

[innovate64]

Convenient that Intel thinks widespread demand for 64-bit won't occur until 2007 since they don't have a 64-bit desktop processor and Itanium tanked. AMD knows better. Check out their Studio64 which has quotes from tech leaders, analysts, press, etc. on when 64-bit will hit big and what this means for you and me: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Weblets/0,,7832_8366_7823 ,00.html

Everyone can benefit from 64 bits

[AaronW]

While most people don't need over 4GB of RAM, having 64 bits can make life much easier for programmers and provide significant performance advantages. For example, no more relocation will need to occur for shared libraries. Every library could be mapped to a unique address without worry of address clashes so no relocation is necessary (although one of the benefits of the Opteron is better support for relocatable code in 64-bit mode).

Memory mapped files could be the norm. Handling large files becomes much simpler, especially random access.

-Aaron

Wintel Wasn't even ready for 32-bit...

[Shuh]

Until the end of 1995.

To be fair, Intel was already there with 32-bit chips, just M$ had to change all its 16-bit code and update its OS. This time it looks like the positions are reversed (unless Itanium ever takes off).

Classic Intel

[TheNetAvenger]

They will ride the 32bit horse as long as they can get away with it. This isn't a case of available technology, but what they milk out of the consumers.

I think AMD is taking the right road to the 64bit transition.

BTW, Don't for a second think Microsoft is not going to fully support the AMD 64bit platform. It is already there, just not officially released. So don't yell at Microsoft for crushing this technology.

Windows 2003 is already filled with AMD64bit binaries and once the AMD chips hit, there will be 64bit replacements for XP and add-ons to Windows 2003 Server to fully support it.

With an NDA, I cannot say anymore. :)