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...

[hhnerkopfabbeisser]

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

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....

[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.

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.

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!

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...

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.

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: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.