64Bit Processors?

[Guest]

Anybody know anything about these bad boys? I know that details are really sketchy since we wont see them until around later 2001-early 2002, but what knowledge is out there right now?

Also will things created on 64bit processors be able to be read by 32bit ones? I'm sure it wont affect text files, mp3s, movies, etc -- or will it?

 

[Guest]

Hey,

The Sledgehammer line of 64 bit processors will be realeased by q1 2002. (Should Be) Unlike Intels Itanium AMD is building the processor around Athlon Architecture, and will have it be reverse compatible with 32 bit applications. You will be able to run your mp3's games, etc. There's a tech document available from AMD. Go here to get it: http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/64bit/pdf/x86-64_overview.pdf

You'll need acrobat to get it.
L8tr,

Timothy Stankus
One of the First AMD Athlon Users =)

 

[Guest]

[Views and information presented in this post do not necessarily represent Intel as a corporation. All views are personal reflections and if they represent Intel information, then it's public information.]

I don't know the ship date for Itanium. Last I checked, we were going to ship in volume around Q2 of 2001.

Intel is not targeting Itanium for most home or office end-users. The market is definitely geared towards high-end server environments (data-mining, e-business, etc.)... eg, not high-end gaming.

Admittedly, there will be a performance penalty when running 32-bit applications. Some of us at Intel find this annoying. Others don't seem concerned since it's intended for specific high-end server audience.

There is some logic to the argument though. THG has already noted that the bottleneck in most games is the 3d graphics. Most businesses are content with running MS-office on a midrange PIII or a celeron. The PC as we know it is quickly approaching commodity/home-appliance status.

Obviously, there will be the various niche markets - people who scream for oodles of processing power: photo-shop users, high-end gamers who wanna run napster while playing UT, yada yada, and voice-recognition PC junkies. The only thing I have to say to them (as I'm one of them) is that Intel will continue making workstation chips.

I can't go into too much detail regarding our overall corporate strategy (3-letter reason: NDA), alas...