INTEL.....is there a problem ?

MasterLee

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Ran across this tidbit of info in this article.....
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5897

Rein blames the reasons for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system on Intel. "I think these were compromises they made for Intel, and I think those are mistakes that’ll hold the industry back. There’s no reason why every machine out there shouldn’t be 64-bit now. There’s great 64-bit processors -- AMD has been shipping them for years. Intel was shipping them for years -- and then threw the core processor, the original core processor, into the mix and the Core Duos were 32-bit, and they shouldn’t have."

While it's understandable that Rein would like a swift move to 64-bit computing, the rest of the industry doesn't appear to be ready. The driver support just isn't there and the performance advantages on the consumer side haven't been fully realized yet. Rein, however, will likely get his wish with the next generation Windows operating system.

I'm not for one company or the other (you tend to miss alot if you have blinders on), just wondering how Core2 is in 64 bit .
 

Pippero

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Core2 in 64bit is, according to some tests, roughly as fast as in 32bit, application dependent
In 64bit, they have the advantage of twice as many registers, and registers with twice the size, plus 64 bit integer math which is useful for fast encryption.
The disadvantage in 64 bit mode is, reportedly, that they cannot do macro-op fusion, and in some cases the decode bandwidth goes down with SSE instructions (due to these being bigger than in 32 bit mode).
The problem is not Core2, but Core (1), which does not support 64 bit at all, yet is still quite popular for notebooks.
 

ajfink

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Well, he is right in a lot of ways. Microsoft could easily have said "You need a 64-bit processor to run Vista" if it weren't for the slew of Pentium-M and Core Duo notebooks still in heavy use. The hardware makers probably wouldn't have minded, they would have sold more hardware.

edit - I have a Core Duo laptop as my primary machine...and I plan on upgrading it with a T7200 at some point. :)
 

ajfink

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People are reluctant to upgrade OSs. To make it 64bit only would be suicidal.

Why? Most people will be buying this OS with new computers, and you won't find a new computer (except for some overstock laptops) that aren't 64-bit capable.
 

heartview

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People are reluctant to upgrade OSs. To make it 64bit only would be suicidal.

Why? Most people will be buying this OS with new computers, and you won't find a new computer (except for some overstock laptops) that aren't 64-bit capable.

Another factor in this is how companies release their programs. If every company were to release a 32-bit and 64-bit version then everything would be ok, but that won't happen. Sure, the 64-bit OS can run 32-bit apps, but there still may be compatibility issues. Not to mention that Microsoft stripped out support for 16-bit Windows apps from the 64-bit version of Vista.

In short, there are MANY reasons as to why going 64-bit only for Vista would have been suicide for Microsoft. Can't blame Intel only on this one.
 

Action_Man

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People are reluctant to upgrade OSs. To make it 64bit only would be suicidal.

Why? Most people will be buying this OS with new computers, and you won't find a new computer (except for some overstock laptops) that aren't 64-bit capable.

Few new comps will ship with vista, most will be XP.
 
G

Guest

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I tend to agree with the fact that Vista should've been 64bit. Most of the Drivers had to be re-written anyway. I,Ve run Xp 64 bit for a little while before getting my copy of Vista Business and I must say that the 64bit experience wasn't all that great due to driver. So I opted for a 32bit Vista.

And about new comps, Daylytech had picture of entire Laptop/desktop demo row empty right before the Vista launch. I would expect the MS push to be strong and most computer to come out shortly having soem Vista pre-installed.
 

mpjesse

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People are reluctant to upgrade OSs. To make it 64bit only would be suicidal.

Why? Most people will be buying this OS with new computers, and you won't find a new computer (except for some overstock laptops) that aren't 64-bit capable.

What... and people with 32 bit computers aren't entitled to an OS upgrade? I've got a Core Duo laptop that's not capable of 64 bit but is more than capable (and IS) running Vista.

Action Man is right... making Vista 64bit only would be suicidal.
 

fredgiblet

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What... and people with 32 bit computers aren't entitled to an OS upgrade?

What...and people with 8-bit computers aren't entitled to OS upgrades? At some point every architechture has to die, 64-bit has been mature for long enough that I think that the switch should have happened here. XP will continue to be supported for years anyways so I don't see why 32-bit can't become legacy, by the time that 64-bit (i.e. Vista) becomes required most people will need\want new computers anyways so whats the big deal with dropping 32-bit?
 

BaronMatrix

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People are reluctant to upgrade OSs. To make it 64bit only would be suicidal.

Why? Most people will be buying this OS with new computers, and you won't find a new computer (except for some overstock laptops) that aren't 64-bit capable.

Another factor in this is how companies release their programs. If every company were to release a 32-bit and 64-bit version then everything would be ok, but that won't happen. Sure, the 64-bit OS can run 32-bit apps, but there still may be compatibility issues. Not to mention that Microsoft stripped out support for 16-bit Windows apps from the 64-bit version of Vista.

In short, there are MANY reasons as to why going 64-bit only for Vista would have been suicide for Microsoft. Can't blame Intel only on this one.

Well, beginning with Exchange 2007, all new MS server aps REQUIRE a 64bit CPU/OS. Office will probably be next. The Ribbon interface should greatly simplify upgrades to Office apps. All Office apps can benefit from large RAM sizes. Access, Excel, Word (media inserts), PowerPoint(even more media inserts).

If Itanium had caught on I'd bet all of you would be singing a different tune.
 

darkz

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What...and people with 8-bit computers aren't entitled to OS upgrades? At some point every architechture has to die, 64-bit has been mature for long enough that I think that the switch should have happened here. XP will continue to be supported for years anyways so I don't see why 32-bit can't become legacy, by the time that 64-bit (i.e. Vista) becomes required most people will need\want new computers anyways so whats the big deal with dropping 32-bit?

1. A lot of computers can run Vista but do not support 64bit.
2. Switching from 8bit to 16bit and from 16bit to 32bit gave immediate advantages. Running a 64 bit OS with less than 4GB RAM gives no advantages whatsoever.
 

DavidC1

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The disadvantage in 64 bit mode is, reportedly, that they cannot do macro-op fusion, and in some cases the decode bandwidth goes down with SSE instructions (due to these being bigger than in 32 bit mode).
The problem is not Core2, but Core (1), which does not support 64 bit at all, yet is still quite popular for notebooks.

That isn't a disadvantage. Because 64-bit with Core 2 Duo doesn't slow down compared to 32-bit, it gains performance!!! The performance impact of the "lack of support" is less than 5% in most of cases. People seem to be almost paranoid of the lack of some performance features for 64-bit. But it doesn't matter!! Cause it still kicks any other CPU even in 64-bit. 25% performance advantage is now 20%!! Who cares!!

With initial versions of 64-bit with Pentium 4's, they actually had disadvantages of 64-bit, because it wasn't fully compatible with the x86-64. But Core 2 Duo does, just that you may lose few % of performance out of the tens of %.
 

pausert20

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If Microsoft was really interested in moving the computing public towards 64bit OS aggressively they would price Windows Vista 64 at a lower price than the 32 bit Vista. If the cost is the same then Microsoft is agnostic about the switch.

The same goes for either Intel or AMD. If they want the public to move to 64bit OS then they will need to put their marketing dollars and development dollars towards that purpose.
 

weskurtz81

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Actionman,

I went to Dell and HPs' website just to check out your thought they most would ship with XP, well, at HP XP wasn't even an option for the cheapest box I could configure, and it wasn't an option at Dell either. I imagine the rest of the companies will follow suit. If you cannot even buy an XP based machine from the two largest manufactures in the world.... the rest will probably try to compete with them. Think about it, why would the average consumer go by a computer with crappy old XP from computer store X when Dell and HP are selling them with Vista? Sales sales sales.....

wes
 

kamel5547

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People are reluctant to upgrade OSs. To make it 64bit only would be suicidal.

Uh... because a lot of 32 bit hardware is being sold nowadays? Outside of celerons and semprons im pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find 32 bit cpus at OEM's.

You got it backwards, because people are reluctant to do OS upgrades it makes perfect sense to make Vista 64 bit only.
 

T800-101

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I configured a system at dell.com including Windows Vista. Seeing it was a 64 bit capable system, I wanted to see if it would ship with 32bit or 64bit Vista. No where on the website did it say. So I called Dell for hell of it to find out. After talking to 2 different people, they couldn't tell me!!!

I agree that Vista should have been 64 bit only, but Intel no doubt lobbied MS heavily.
 

DavidC1

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Uh... because a lot of 32 bit hardware is being sold nowadays? Outside of celerons and semprons im pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find 32 bit cpus at OEM's.

You got it backwards, because people are reluctant to do OS upgrades it makes perfect sense to make Vista 64 bit only.

Yes. Exactly. 8 to 16 bit and 16 to 32 bit doesn't count. Back in those days, people REALLY needed more memory, word processing was THE killer app for PCs.

Nowadays, most people can buy nearly any computer and have more than enough processing power.
 

weskurtz81

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Correct me if I am wrong, aren't all the semprons which have been selling since the 939 semprons 64bit? I am pretty sure all 939 and forward semprons have the extensions.

wes
 

crazypyro

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To make a change that big everything needs to trasition on the base level first. In this case the base level is hardware, without the hardware there is no way software can run. Rein was right in saying that the release of a 32bit processor in 2006 helped hold us back.

While there are still Athlon XP's and Pentium 4 and 3's still being used ( i just went from a P-III to a C2D last monday), Vista was correct in coming out in both forms. The hardware makers, CPU makers in this case, need to make everything dual-core or better and 64bit processors in order to push the developers to write multi-threaded and 64bit apps.

Expect the next windows to be 64bit only.

Hardware leads Software.
Software depends on Hardware.
 

T800-101

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current intel hardware is 64bit
The majority of Intel hardware in use is 32 bit.

But when you consider that the vast majority of Vista sales will be from new PC's, it makes little sense to have a 32 bit version. This would seem to indicate that Intel put pressure on MS to release a 32 bit version to save face. Intel would get some bad press etc. if people found out that most every AMD systems from 3-4 years ago will run Vista and many Intel systems would not.

Microsoft could have really helped push 64 bit computing into the mainstream by releasing only a 64 bit only Vista.
 

T800-101

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C2D is 64Bit what are you saying?
You totally missed the point. Seeing nearly ALL of Vista's sales will be in new PC's, why release a 32 bit version? Why bother with a version that does not enable aero glass? Why not only release a 64 bit version and turn all 32 bit systems into legacy hardware?

Think about it, many Intel systems sold in the last 4 years are 32 bit only, especially in mobile. And most of those have piss poor integrated graphics that can barely do ANYTHING in 3D. Intel is not too keen on people walking around saying Vista does not work AT ALL on many of their systems, which would be a reality if there was no 32 bit Vista.
only pressure intel put on MS is to release it soon to sell stuff
So you think Intel will sell less hardware if Vista is not released? If Vista is not out there, people are going to purchase systems anyway regardless.
intel would rather sell its new hardware for vista and not reuse old hardware like you are implying amd wants to do.
I'm not implying or stating that at all. BTW, Intel systems without 3rd party discreet graphics are the worst performing systems for Vista by far.