128bit CPU

[freggo]

Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a 128bit CPU ?

 

[CDdude55]

128-bit CPU's do not exist in the mainstream currently because there is no need for such thing at the moment, 64-bit capable CPU are still pretty flexable into the future.

Keep in mind that a 128-bit CPU would mean 128-bit registers, memory adresses etc. So software would have to take advantage of these increases before you see any benefit, it's the same way currently, modern x86(32-bit) CPU's have a 64-bit extension to the x86 instruction set, if this was not there then progrmamers would have to work with smaller data sets and would be less capable overall.

It still sucks that we are using an ISA from the 70's, because if they moved into native 64-bit, then developers would drop 32-bit support and we'd have software developed nativly around those extra 64-bit benefits. But it's a compatiblity thing as well, if this were to happen 32-bit software would not longer work.

 

[noob2222]

Gotta love wiki for answers like this

128-bit processors could be used for addressing directly up to 2^128 (over 3.40 × 1038) bytes, which would greatly exceed the total data stored on Earth as of 2010, which has been estimated to be around 1.2 zettabytes (over 270 bytes).

There are cpus today wich are capable of doing 128 bit calculations, in fact BD is capable of handling 256 bit FPU calculations. But thats totally different than memory storage.

 

[CDdude55]

Gotta love wiki for answers like this

128-bit processors could be used for addressing directly up to 2^128 (over 3.40 × 1038) bytes, which would greatly exceed the total data stored on Earth as of 2010, which has been estimated to be around 1.2 zettabytes (over 270 bytes).

There are cpus today wich are capable of doing 128 bit calculations, in fact BD is capable of handling 256 bit FPU calculations. But thats totally different than memory storage.

Bah, no 256-bit fp threads coming anytime soon.

 

[nekulturny]

I wondered this very question myself, but I was afraid to ask it.

 

[nekulturny]

Gotta love wiki for answers like this

128-bit processors could be used for addressing directly up to 2^128 (over 3.40 × 1038) bytes, which would greatly exceed the total data stored on Earth as of 2010, which has been estimated to be around 1.2 zettabytes (over 270 bytes).

There are cpus today wich are capable of doing 128 bit calculations, in fact BD is capable of handling 256 bit FPU calculations. But thats totally different than memory storage.

So that means it could calculate the meaning of life and come up with "42"? I think they already had that done with the computing power of a Cray2.

 

[sk1939]

So that means it could calculate the meaning of life and come up with "42"? I think they already had that done with the computing power of a Cray2.

You can do a lot with computers, and math in general. You can quantify the movement of the universe (Hubbel's law, velocity = H0 × distance), and entropy for that matter.

This is an interesting read if you have the time.