Intel confirmed: 64-bit tech by 1H 2004!!!

[P4Man]

>Erm... This is not a desperate attempt.

I was referring to the marketing effort trying to differentiate their IA64 platform (as a "real" 64 bit server platform), and their CT chips ("32 bit with a miniscule, small "+" extention"). Like they think that is going to keep people from buying CT servers instead of Itaniums, hence 'desperate'. nothing to do with the chips themselves, just a branding/marketing issue.

>As for Centrino, noone is required to buy P-Ms with
>Centrinos.

No, but people dont know what pentium-m is; that is why I hate it when knowlegable posters use the centrino name instead of Pentium M when referring to the cpu, and thereby help intel sell obsolete WLAN cards. Of course its clever marketing by intel, just trying to pop the balloon ..

>Plus, your reluctance to accept the great quality of
>Centrino's processor as one of its strengths before calling
>it crap is a little exaggerated.

hu ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Mephistopheles]

Hm.... If it's just marketing, I agree: Yes, but that problem is unavoidable anyway... They had it coming; they even had time to think of some excuse. The best part of it: they'll have to put one hell of an effort in Itanium (come up with that dual-core Montecito with 24MB cache not in 2005, but it 2004!) to justify the damned thing.

...to demonstrate:
My colleagues' reaction to CT:
Me: Hey, guess what? Xeon will be going full 64-bit...
Professor: AHA! Screw Itanium; we'll never consider it again...

So there you go. Itanium is a burden for Intel, if they don't make it an über-killer-chip-monstrosity...

Heck!!! Put a 3Ghz P4 on the die of an I2 1.5Ghz and it will definitely be the fastest processor on earth, easily!!! And it will run code greatly. Funniest thing is that that would add like only a small percentage of die and transistor count... Itanium has a pathetic transistor count.

<i><font color=red>You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete</font color=red> - Buckminster Fuller </i>

 

[P4Man]

>Professor: AHA! Screw Itanium; we'll never consider it
>again...

Like someone said (dont remember where): I look forward to Itaniums succesfull sales in future printers as the follow up to the i860 😀

>So there you go. Itanium is a burden for Intel, if they
>don't make it an über-killer-chip-monstrosity...

Hmm.. there is more than just performance that matters. I think HP firmly has Itaniums future in hand; Itanium will "soon" be the only cpu to run HP-UX, Tandem, Nonstop and VMS. If HP falters, Itanium dies. If HP gives up on Itanium and ports HP-UX or VMS to something else (like x86), Itanium dies. If not, Itanium has a long future ahead of it, but it will be hard for intel to make money with it. Much easier for HP though.

>Heck!!! Put a 3Ghz P4 on the die of an I2 1.5Ghz and it
>will definitely be the fastest processor on earth, easily!!

Hmm.. I'm not quite sure if it that easy really "Easier" would be to outfit a CT enabled 3+ GHz P4 with the same massive cache architecture and memory bandwith as Itanium, and I'm pretty sure THAT would be the fastest cpu in just about any benchmark.

> Itanium has a pathetic transistor count

A fairly small transistor count really; the core itself is only ~20M transistors; a lot less than a P4 core. Its the gobbles of cache that make it big and hot and give it a high transistorcount. And decent performance, especially in SPEC

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Mephistopheles]

Actually, its big caches are important, you're right.

Just Imagine a Pentium running on 6MB cache like the I2 1.5Ghz... Or even 24MB cache!!! Like Montecito!

Itanium's logic core has 20M transistors? What the hell is in Scotty's, then, for it to have 70 million of them??? Oh my...

<i><font color=red>You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete</font color=red> - Buckminster Fuller </i>

 

[c0d1f1ed]

"just" ? yeah, its "just" capable of 64 bit math, 64 bit addressing and it has 64 bit registers (which is pretty much a must to allow 64 addressing. You need to store these pointers somehow). So, really, its "just" a 64 bit cpu. There is no way to achieve this on a 32 bit cpu, period.

32-bit mode works with segmentation, which theoretically allows 256 Terabyte of memory. The only limitation is 4 GB per segment but nothing really exceeds that without being able to work around it. Practically, the problem is that most operating systems only support one segment.

Okay, here is a challenge: find me ONE program or OS that uses 64 addressing and pointers on a 64 bit capable cpu, but uses 32 arithmetic and is therefore referred to by anyone somewhat credible (like the author, ISV, reviewer, analyist, intel, amd, who ever) as a 32 bit program.

Take any 32-bit program and recompile it for 64-bit addressing. If I recall correctly Unreal Tournament 2004 will be released in 32-bit and 64-bit version.

It's often basically the same 32-bit applications that get recompiled to make use of the extended addressing. That's why I think IA-32e isn't a bad name at all. Once again, I'm not implying AMD64 or even x86-64 is a bad name!

I hate it when people end up buying a pentium m with that crap lan adapter instead of a cheaper, better, faster 54 Mb "g" card for the same price, or less.

I'm perfectly happy with my 11 Mb WLAN, thank you. Besides, it can easily be replaced. 11 Mb is just a standard that at the time of the creation of the Centrino platform was significantly cheaper. But let's not get off-topic.

Photoshop, MS OLAP (using a ~50 Mb database and sometimes games when still running one of the other apps.

So you edit photos bigger than 1 GB? My brother's camera only has 3 megapixel. I don't know OLAP, but I find it hard to believe 2 GB addressing space is required for a 50 MB database. And last but not least, it doesn't matter if other applications are running in the background since they all get their own 2 GB addressing space. I haven't seen any game go over 512 MB yet.

 

[P4Man]

This could get a mighty long thread

>32-bit mode works with segmentation, which theoretically
>allows 256 Terabyte of memory

Right.. segmentation. So now you'd call the 286 a 32 bit cpu as well ? I wonder what the point was in introducing the 386 really.. EMS/XMS was such a charm !

>Take any 32-bit program and recompile it for 64-bit
>addressing. If I recall correctly Unreal Tournament 2004
>will be released in 32-bit and 64-bit version.

Read my challenge again, I think you misread it. I challenged you to find one example of a program (or OS) that is being called 32 bit for using 32 bit integers. UT2004 for AMD64 is an example of the opposite; I don't think it will make extensive use of 64 INTs, yet it will be and will be called a 64 bit program by anyone, but you.

>So you edit photos bigger than 1 GB?

I wish I could sometimes, yes, but no. All it takes is a A4 size 600 dpi image in CMYK and then apply some layers. Thats basic consumer level scanner stuff, don't even bother trying 1200 dpi or more.

> I don't know OLAP, but I find it hard to believe 2 GB
>addressing space is required for a 50 MB database.

Thats because you don't know OLAP Never heard of (multidimensional) datacubes ? here is an nice intro into it <A HREF="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnolap/html/olapover.asp" target="_new">http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnolap/html/olapover.asp</A>

>And last but not least, it doesn't matter if other
>applications are running in the background since they all
>get their own 2 GB addressing space

Well it does matter in reality, i learned that from personal experience. Isnt the OS limited to 4 GB virtual memory anyway ? Sure you can give any process its own pirvate 4-2 Gb address space, but OS has to map these address spaces into virtual memory (swap), which AFAIK is limited to 4 GB under a 32 bit OS. XP Pro for sure can't handle more than 4GB swap, try it if you like ! If that explication doesnt make sense to you, try <A HREF="http://www.chip-architect.com/news/2003_04_20_Looking_at_Intels_Prescott_part2.html" target="_new">this one </A> Scroll down to "The need for 64 bit processing: Closer than you think." Not sure which of both explanations causes my issues, but I know they are very real.

> I haven't seen any game go over 512 MB yet.

You havent tried a lot of MMORPGs then


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[BigMac]

So you edit photos bigger than 1 GB? My brother's camera only has 3 megapixel. I don't know OLAP, but I find it hard to believe 2 GB addressing space is required for a 50 MB database. And last but not least, it doesn't matter if other applications are running in the background since they all get their own 2 GB addressing space. I haven't seen any game go over 512 MB yet.

Today mainstream is 5Mpixel with 12 bit depth per channel. That makes for 30Mb per picture, so if you are editing 30 pictures you're at 1Gb. Maybe P4man has a digicam with 10Mpixel and 16bit per pixel (professional equipment), do the math yourself, 1Gb is closer than you think. Of course when saving the pics to your disk they get compressed (jpg) but in your app the memory they take is the full monty.

Wanna take a guess at video editing?



BigMac

<A HREF="http://www.p3int.com/product_center_NWO_The_Story.asp" target="_new">New World Order</A>

 

[P4Man]

>Today mainstream is 5Mpixel with 12 bit depth per channel.
>That makes for 30Mb per picture, so if you are editing 30
>pictures you're at 1Gb. Maybe P4man has a digicam with
>10Mpixel and 16bit per pixel

I actually have a prototype 14 mpixel cmos camera (32bit colour), but those files are perfectly manageable. They are "only" ~50-60Mb each, I think you made a mistake in your math:
5Mpixel x 36bit per pixel = 180M bits = 22 Mbyte.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[eden]

I don't see many home users requiring digicams that use 12 or 16-bit depth per color channel, do you?

Today mainstream is 5Mpixel with 12 bit depth per channel

Mainstream eh?


--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.html" target="_new"><font color=blue><b>This just in, over 56 no-lifers have their pics up on THGC's Photo Album! </b></font color=blue></A> :lol: <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 02/18/04 12:51 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[P4Man]

oops, I was a bit too quick.. hadnt seen you mentioned editing 30 images at once.. well, frankly that is not too common. More common is working with a few pics with each a dozen or more layers. the results is the same though.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[P4Man]

I don't know a thing about digicams, but for digital photography: sure ! And 5 Mpixel is mainstream now, 15(+) Mpixel will be common next year or so. More than that is not too usefull, as the optics aren't good enough anyway on anything but professional gear. Affordable ~15M SLR consumer cams are on their way though. Gives you a result as good as the best analog SLRs.

But like I said, you don't really need a 64 bit computer to work on digital photo's from a camera. Try scanning though, at 2400 dpi. Watch your computer crash and burn.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[eden]

I'm fairly savvy in digicams, and digital photography, and can tell you that we are still in the era of 3.2MP. 4MP is getting more known. 5MP hasn't caught on yet. I've looked around me and don't know many ready to spend 500$ on 5MP digicams.

As for 15MP? Erm, I think you're overexaggerating by miles. Based on the evolution lately, I don't expect that to become mainstream any soon. Heck, no one even needs more than 4MP, unless for professional needs. If you want photos, 15MP is overkill no matter what. You'll have to resize each time spending processing time resizing. Even 5MP is too much for any picture from a regular user. I have a 3.2MP camera and stopped using the 3.2MPs (2048*1536) and switched to 1024*768. You simply don't need more. Sure, the resolution is sharper when resizing, but not by much, and you lose so much memory card space. And sure, soon/eventually we'll have affordable high-quality 200$ 5MP digicams, but try to find me people who will always use the 5MPs supplied and waste their flash cards, when they are home users (the point-n-shoot kind).

In digital photography for amateurs and professionals, I can understand the need for SLRs and 6MP+ DSCs. That's usually because you do posters, or big pannels. But don't tell me we're going into a 15MP era in mainstream next year, because honestly (no disrespect intended) I'll laugh!

--
<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/album.html" target="_new"><font color=blue><b>This just in, over 56 no-lifers have their pics up on THGC's Photo Album! </b></font color=blue></A> :lol: <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 02/18/04 01:11 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[P4Man]

Depends what you call mainstream. Do you consider SLR (analogue) mainstream ? i know precious few people how own one (analogue), but I did consider it mainstream for amateur photographers (and obviously for pro's, reporters, ..)

SO when I said 15 Mp will go mainstream, I meant for the users that buy SLR's today. Not my mom taking pictures on a holiday, but the somewhat interested photographer. Or if you want it in other words: for around $1000-$1500. Maybe that is not what you call mainstream, but its about the price of a good analogue SLR with interchangeable optics. Digital 15 Mp camera's will get to roughly that same price point next year, if not earlier.

If you mean mass market consumer models.. well, 4-5 Mp is already becoming mainstream and dirt cheap. For the price you bought a 3.3 camera last year, you can have a 4-5 MP today. But I do agree much more is not necessary if you don't intend to make posters, and those ultraportable camera's simply don't have good enoug optics to warrant much more.

As for storage.. it gets cheaper everyday. And I've been using a 1 GB microdrive for a few years now, so see if I care 😀

BTW, disposable 3MP digital camera's are in the works.. go figure.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[P4Man]

Oh, and one thing you forgot: digital camera's are going full frame. And they need to, to match analogue camera's in quality. Full frame means a frigging huge sensors (35mm) and that alone pretty much ensures high pixel counts. At least, if you want a good camera, as good as your analogue SLR.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[juin]

you dont have a new 64 bit camera to go with your athlon64

Just to show dad