whats so good about 64bit cpus?

[nesck]

wrong, registers are not a problem for programmers. Most programmers program in c++, registers are a non-issue, and are not an issue for any programmer.

Seriously just STFU, you're just trolling now.

No, give me 1 statement that I made that would support that I trolled. You have been making topics cussing at me, how is that not trolling? You still REFUSE to awnser my question!

 

[corvetteguy]

The main thing is, there are no disadvantages..... stupid tard. I'm going to bed too, because i'm tored, not because i've been proved an idiot like neskfuck.

Yes there are disadvantages.

64bit cpus have added cost and 64bit code in assembly is more poorly coded / less optimized than 32bit in assembly.

64bit cpu's also cost more to make, and took money to research, make the cpu more complex for more optimizations.


I just figured out an advantage 64bit offers!!

the extra profit companies make from FUD, thats an advantage! Not exactly an advantages for you...

I don't understand you... you are against advancment in tech? or against spending money on it? Well if thats it, then maybe we should expand that cheapness. YOU cost money, and actually seem worse in intelligence than the previous generation(though i might be wrong about that, and thats scary for you parents), so why don't we just nip that prolem in the bud and kill you, save the food expense and more air for the rest of us.


:twisted: :roll: 8)

 

[Action_Man]

I have answered your question numerous times you dumb bastard.

 

[corvetteguy]

he really did.... but maybe you were too busy denying it to notice. maybe scroll back some comments and find the answers. we've wasted enough time talking to you. your more frustrating than my grandma who has major alzheimers tard!!! :twisted: :x :roll: :? 8O

 

[purplerat]

just one finally question for nesk before I go to bed. How did somebody as ignorant to technology as you find this forum?

 

[corvetteguy]

HAHA... so true. He's probably hanging out in some futureshop getting an assistant to help him. Or maybe his mentally deficient parents are helping him, as a team the 3 or 4 maybe(2 dads) can do it.

 

[Zoron]

You're questions have been answered numerous times, you just don't want to accept the answers.

A common misconception is that 64-bit architectures are no better than 32-bit architectures unless the computer has more than 4 GB of memory. This is not entirely true:

Some operating systems reserve portions of process address space for OS use, effectively reducing the total address space available for mapping memory for user programs. For instance, Windows XP DLLs and userland OS components are mapped into each process's address space, leaving only 2 to 3.8 GB (depending on the settings) address space available, even if the computer has 4 GB of RAM. This restriction is not present in 64-bit Windows.
Memory mapping of files is becoming less useful with 32-bit architectures, especially with the introduction of relatively cheap recordable DVD technology. A 4 GB file is no longer uncommon, and such large files cannot be memory mapped easily to 32-bit architectures; only a region of the file can be mapped into the address space, and to access such a file by memory mapping, those regions will have to be mapped into and out of the address space as needed. This is an issue, as memory mapping remains one of the most efficient disk-to-memory methods, when properly implemented by the OS.

There's one advantage of 64-bit over 32-bit. If you don't like the answer, too f*cking bad. It doesn't invalidate the facts.

However, with the march of time and the continual reductions in the cost of memory (see Moore's Law), by the early 1990s installations with quantities of RAM approaching 4 gigabytes began to appear, and the use of virtual memory spaces exceeding the 4-gigabyte ceiling became desirable for handling certain types of problems. In response, a number of companies began releasing new families of chips with 64-bit architectures, initially for supercomputers and high-end workstation and server machines. 64-bit computing has gradually drifted down to the personal computer desktop, with Apple Computer's PowerMac desktop line as of 2003 using a 64-bit processor (the G5 chip from IBM), and AMD's "AMD64" architecture (implemented by Intel as "EM64T") becoming common in high-end PCs. The emergence of the 64-bit architecture effectively increases the memory ceiling to 264 addresses, equivalent to 17,179,869,184 gigabytes or 16 exabytes of RAM. To put this in perspective, in the days when a mere 4 kB of main memory was commonplace, the maximum memory ceiling of 232 addresses was about 1 million times larger than typical memory configurations. Taking today's standard as 4 GB of main memory (actually, few personal computers have this much), then the difference between today's standard and the 264 limit is a factor of about 4 billion. Most 64-bit consumer PCs on the market today have an artificial limit on the amount of memory they can recognize, because physical constraints make it highly unlikely that one will need support for the full 16 exabyte capacity. Apple's Power Mac G5, for example, can be physically configured with up to 16 gigabytes of memory, and as such there is no need for support beyond that amount. The latest Linux kernel (version 2.6.16) can be compiled with support for up to 64 gigabytes of memory.

So why don't you ask Apple why it limits Macs to 16GB? HOW DARE THEY???!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!!!!!!ONE!

Your questions have just been asnwered... again. Now don't come here little a whiny, sniveling little brat and ask the questions yet again because you didn't like the answers.

And yes, people buying computers with Vista Starter (or whatever the hell it's called) can't possibly afford a lot of hardware... so a cheap, dumbed down version of Vista doesn't have to support 1GB+ of RAM. You quite obviously have absolutely no clue how marketing works.

Oh, and for f*ck sakes... read what PAE is all about on M$'s webpage:

Click Me.

Even with PAE, 32-bit WinXP is limited to 4GB of ADDRESS SPACE. This is different than the maxiumum amount of RAM a system supports.

Where is P4 Man when you need him?

 

[stuart]

You impress me. You sound just like a young Bill Gates.
"640K of memory! No one will ever need that much."
As hardware has become more capable the software guys have ALWAYS found a need for it. ALWAYS. If you think that 4 gig of memory is gonna be enough forever then you are to stupid to be allowed to continue posting.

 

[Atolsammeek]

I m going to make you look like a fool Nesck. If we went back to the 1980s When they where changing from 8 bit to 16 bit then to 32 bit. People had the Same dumb fight. Oh why do we need 32 bit. Oh why do we need more ram. Or bill gates old Line we only need 640k of ram. Why do we need 32 bit and guess what it took 10 years to get from 16 bit to full 32 bit. Here why dont you try 16 bit computing and get back to us Nesck 16 bit os. You look like a fool. Stay in the world of pacman and space invaders Compare it to 32 bit games like Doom 3 battle feild 1942 2 . That should give you a clue on 16 bit to 32 bit and you get a understanding why 64 bit is the next step.

Face the fact It took a while for a new tech to come into prime time. Do you remember dos. Hold it you might been in pampers in a stinky diaper. Why dont you load one of the Old os Like dos or win 3.1 In this age of time and try to use the same programs today. Sorry to say You cant run 95% of the programs today on dos. We can say the same thing with windows 3.1. Then if you tried the games like space invadors and Pac Man or elite on windows xp or windows 64 Pro. They would run to fast on the computers we have today. So you would need to get programs to slow down the computer to run the game right. And the picture of the games back then where Poor Quality.

Fact is when vista comes out It will run Intel or Amd 64 bit better then windows 64 Pro. Games Will slowly change to 64 bit and have better picture Quality. As time keeps going it will get better and better.

See History is repeating it self. So stop living in the Past.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

The performance difference between athlon 64 3200+ and athlon xp 3200+ aren't to big, plus the price difference is huge.

Whoa... I don't know where to start on that compairison. The Socket A and Socket 939 3200+ models are VERY different and should not be so directly compaired like that for the purposes of showing 64 vs. 32 bit.

 

[WR]

Well nesck is nothing but ignorant here, but some of the given answers aren't correct, either.

A 64-bit CPU is simply a processor that operates on 64 bits at a time. You can always make a 32-bit or 16-bit CPU use more instruction cycles to perform the same tasks, so the argument at its heart is over efficiency and, ultimately, performance, since you can't always double the clock rate or double the execution units of a 32-bit CPU to compete well with a 64-bit one.

For many applications this is not important, but there are quite a few applications that benefit tremendously, mostly scientific stuff and complex code like chess. For chess, it's far more convenient to program in 64 bits because a representation of the board is 64-bit.

The 64-bit capability of the current crop of CPUs is barely used because of problems with driver support and application breadth in the face of an overwhelming installed base of 32-bit CPUs and volumes of prewritten 32-bit code. Any comments about the inefficiency of 64-bit compiled code must take into account this current lack of incentive to program in 64 bits. The tools for 64-bit applications are new or immature relative to their 32-bit counterparts, but over time this will of course change.

 

[freeagent]

Show me one that meets price/performance of current CPUs.

I've already made clear, many times.

The 64bit capability on the Athlon 64, DOES NOT MAKE PERFORMANCE HIGHER ON 32BIT APPLICATIONS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS.

yeah. it does. my mobile barton @ 2700mhz, could not keep up with my old 3700@ stock. oh wait, in the multimedia bench in sandra, it kept up with an fx55, but that it. the axp was decimated in every other test i ran. superpi? my 3700 @ stock still beat my 2700mhz barton. just incase you dont believe me on the speeds.. heres my barton.

 

[m25]

You impress me. You sound just like a young Bill Gates.
"640K of memory! No one will ever need that much."
As hardware has become more capable the software guys have ALWAYS found a need for it. ALWAYS. If you think that 4 gig of memory is gonna be enough forever then you are to stupid to be allowed to continue posting.

Bill Gates will switch all his apps to 64 bit also, Hes better 😀

 

[m25]

>>64 bit CPUs coupled with 64 bit software can be 5-15% faster than 32 bit ones, especially for SSE3 optimized apps.

>>Have you tried to edit a 8m X 4m billboard ?! It will eat ALL your 4G of RAM.

>>Native 64 bit CPUs can be up to 4 times faster in encoding/decoding than 32 bit CPUs.

 

[nesck]

You're questions have been answered numerous times, you just don't want to accept the answers.

A common misconception is that 64-bit architectures are no better than 32-bit architectures unless the computer has more than 4 GB of memory. This is not entirely true:

Some operating systems reserve portions of process address space for OS use, effectively reducing the total address space available for mapping memory for user programs. For instance, Windows XP DLLs and userland OS components are mapped into each process's address space, leaving only 2 to 3.8 GB (depending on the settings) address space available, even if the computer has 4 GB of RAM. This restriction is not present in 64-bit Windows.
Memory mapping of files is becoming less useful with 32-bit architectures, especially with the introduction of relatively cheap recordable DVD technology. A 4 GB file is no longer uncommon, and such large files cannot be memory mapped easily to 32-bit architectures; only a region of the file can be mapped into the address space, and to access such a file by memory mapping, those regions will have to be mapped into and out of the address space as needed. This is an issue, as memory mapping remains one of the most efficient disk-to-memory methods, when properly implemented by the OS.

There's one advantage of 64-bit over 32-bit. If you don't like the answer, too f*cking bad. It doesn't invalidate the facts.

However, with the march of time and the continual reductions in the cost of memory (see Moore's Law), by the early 1990s installations with quantities of RAM approaching 4 gigabytes began to appear, and the use of virtual memory spaces exceeding the 4-gigabyte ceiling became desirable for handling certain types of problems. In response, a number of companies began releasing new families of chips with 64-bit architectures, initially for supercomputers and high-end workstation and server machines. 64-bit computing has gradually drifted down to the personal computer desktop, with Apple Computer's PowerMac desktop line as of 2003 using a 64-bit processor (the G5 chip from IBM), and AMD's "AMD64" architecture (implemented by Intel as "EM64T") becoming common in high-end PCs. The emergence of the 64-bit architecture effectively increases the memory ceiling to 264 addresses, equivalent to 17,179,869,184 gigabytes or 16 exabytes of RAM. To put this in perspective, in the days when a mere 4 kB of main memory was commonplace, the maximum memory ceiling of 232 addresses was about 1 million times larger than typical memory configurations. Taking today's standard as 4 GB of main memory (actually, few personal computers have this much), then the difference between today's standard and the 264 limit is a factor of about 4 billion. Most 64-bit consumer PCs on the market today have an artificial limit on the amount of memory they can recognize, because physical constraints make it highly unlikely that one will need support for the full 16 exabyte capacity. Apple's Power Mac G5, for example, can be physically configured with up to 16 gigabytes of memory, and as such there is no need for support beyond that amount. The latest Linux kernel (version 2.6.16) can be compiled with support for up to 64 gigabytes of memory.

So why don't you ask Apple why it limits Macs to 16GB? HOW DARE THEY???!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!!!!!!ONE!

Your questions have just been asnwered... again. Now don't come here little a whiny, sniveling little brat and ask the questions yet again because you didn't like the answers.

And yes, people buying computers with Vista Starter (or whatever the hell it's called) can't possibly afford a lot of hardware... so a cheap, dumbed down version of Vista doesn't have to support 1GB+ of RAM. You quite obviously have absolutely no clue how marketing works.

Oh, and for f*ck sakes... read what PAE is all about on M$'s webpage:

Click Me.

Even with PAE, 32-bit WinXP is limited to 4GB of ADDRESS SPACE. This is different than the maxiumum amount of RAM a system supports.

Where is P4 Man when you need him?


Ur entire post is incorrect and wrong.
First of all, microsoft purposely made windows xp handle a maximum of 4gb of ram. They could make it able to use more if they wanted to, but they REFUSE to.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

You can actually have a 3gb process in memory. You are wrong.
I have a 4gb+ file on my computer right now, and my computer is doing just fine with it, how windows moves files is it move pieces and deletes the pieces it moved, when you cancel the action it does the reverse.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/pae_os.mspx

As you can see, with just a SERVICE PACK, Microsoft was able to make
Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition support 32 GB RAM to
Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition support 64GB RAM.

Moore's Law is untrue anyways.
You can see that the hard drives have hit a dead end, and cpu performance is slowing.

Most 64-bit consumer PCs on the market today have an artificial limit on the amount of memory they can recognize, because physical constraints make it highly unlikely that one will need support for the full 16 exabyte capacity.

Wrong! Microsoft could very easily add the programming in for it to support 128gb, why leave it at 8gb? Windows xp has a lot more restrictions than u believe, such as the tcp/udp limit. After you send a certian amount of SYN packets (this effects windows xp, xp1, and xp2), you lose your internet and its unable to send anymore SYN packets.

It is clear you just copy and pasting a paragraph from another site, good job.

http://www.blinkbits.com/en_wikifeeds/LP64

THE PERSON IM QUOTING JUST COPIED THE PARAGRAPH FROM THIS SITE! You still have not showed me any 64bit advantages, PAE makes 32bit support up to 128gb ram.

 

[nesck]

>>64 bit CPUs coupled with 64 bit software can be 5-15% faster than 32 bit ones, especially for SSE3 optimized apps.

>>Have you tried to edit a 8m X 4m billboard ?! It will eat ALL your 4G of RAM.

>>Native 64 bit CPUs can be up to 4 times faster in encoding/decoding than 32 bit CPUs.

Pff, ur confused. Even IF the current 64bit supporting cpus, did NOT support 64bit, SSE3 would still be there!

 

[nesck]

Show me one that meets price/performance of current CPUs.

I've already made clear, many times.

The 64bit capability on the Athlon 64, DOES NOT MAKE PERFORMANCE HIGHER ON 32BIT APPLICATIONS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS.

yeah. it does. my mobile barton @ 2700mhz, could not keep up with my old 3700@ stock. oh wait, in the multimedia bench in sandra, it kept up with an fx55, but that it. the axp was decimated in every other test i ran. superpi? my 3700 @ stock still beat my 2700mhz barton. just incase you dont believe me on the speeds.. heres my barton.



Guess what? Sandra takes extra test for more capable hardware, which changes the scores. And even if your 3700+ did not support 64bit, it would still score good against the barton.

 

[nesck]

Well nesck is nothing but ignorant here, but some of the given answers aren't correct, either.

A 64-bit CPU is simply a processor that operates on 64 bits at a time. You can always make a 32-bit or 16-bit CPU use more instruction cycles to perform the same tasks, so the argument at its heart is over efficiency and, ultimately, performance, since you can't always double the clock rate or double the execution units of a 32-bit CPU to compete well with a 64-bit one.

For many applications this is not important, but there are quite a few applications that benefit tremendously, mostly scientific stuff and complex code like chess. For chess, it's far more convenient to program in 64 bits because a representation of the board is 64-bit.

The 64-bit capability of the current crop of CPUs is barely used because of problems with driver support and application breadth in the face of an overwhelming installed base of 32-bit CPUs and volumes of prewritten 32-bit code. Any comments about the inefficiency of 64-bit compiled code must take into account this current lack of incentive to program in 64 bits. The tools for 64-bit applications are new or immature relative to their 32-bit counterparts, but over time this will of course change.

You still haven't told me how is 64bit better than 32bit. If your telling me 64bit can execute code twice as fast, why don't they just go 512bit?

 

[nesck]

I m going to make you look like a fool Nesck. If we went back to the 1980s When they where changing from 8 bit to 16 bit then to 32 bit. People had the Same dumb fight.

No they did not have the same fight, the software base was much smaller, and the ram limitations were severe. Its also much harder to program (depending on the language) in 16bit / 8bit than in 32bit.

Oh why do we need 32 bit. Oh why do we need more ram. Or bill gates old Line we only need 640k of ram. Why do we need 32 bit and guess what it took 10 years to get from 16 bit to full 32 bit. Here why dont you try 16 bit computing and get back to us Nesck

Don't tell me that because of person said something means it was correct, I can find quotes saying that 640k of ram isn't enough. And I do have a 16bit computer and it works fine. 16bit just doesn't offer enough ram, even if it had its PAE support, however 32bit does offer enough.

16 bit os. You look like a fool. Stay in the world of pacman and space invaders Compare it to 32 bit games like Doom 3 battle feild 1942 2 . That should give you a clue on 16 bit to 32 bit and you get a understanding why 64 bit is the next step.

32bit can do almost anything 64bit can do. The difference between 16bit and 32bit is big because your comparing cpus clocked 100 times slower than the 32bit counterparts. Underclock your 32bit cpu to 20mhz and see how your doom3 runs.

Face the fact It took a while for a new tech to come into prime time. Do you remember dos. Hold it you might been in pampers in a stinky diaper. Why dont you load one of the Old os Like dos or win 3.1 In this age of time and try to use the same programs today. Sorry to say You cant run 95% of the programs today on dos. We can say the same thing with windows 3.1. Then if you tried the games like space invadors and Pac Man or elite on windows xp or windows 64 Pro. They would run to fast on the computers we have today. So you would need to get programs to slow down the computer to run the game right. And the picture of the games back then where Poor Quality.

Your still comparing 32bit and 16bit.

Fact is when vista comes out It will run Intel or Amd 64 bit better then windows 64 Pro. Games Will slowly change to 64 bit and have better picture Quality. As time keeps going it will get better and better.
See History is repeating it self. So stop living in the Past.

You said better picture quality? Guess what, you don't notice the difference setting ur resolution to 16bit on ur desktop. Almost all monitors only support 16bit and 32bit color, not 64bit because the difference is seen, so your WRONG. As time goes, it will soon hit a dead end, just as hard drives have hit it.

 

[Zoron]

Ur entire post is incorrect and wrong.

Hmmm.

I would think MS knows a little more about their operating systems than you do. How the hell can my post be wrong when I got the information right from the horse's mouth?

You're wrong, you just don't want to admit it.

You can actually have a 3gb process in memory. You are wrong.
I have a 4gb+ file on my computer right now, and my computer is doing just fine with it, how windows moves files is it move pieces and deletes the pieces it moved, when you cancel the action it does the reverse.

Well DUH! Of course you can have a 3GB process... the address space limit is 4GB, not 3GB. How dense can you be?

Moore's Law is untrue anyways.
You can see that the hard drives have hit a dead end, and cpu performance is slowing.

You prove your moronicy with this statement. Moore's Law was never about performance... it was about transistor count. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

The truth is, moving to a 64-bit platform with a 64-bit OS isn't costing you anything extra at this time. Soon 64-bit will be mainstream and 32-bit won't matter. So why the hell are you arguing about it? You blather on and on and on about extra development cost; but how long has AMD64 been around? Two years + now? There is no longer any extra development cost associated with 64-bit because it's here NOW. Every single processor being developed is being developed with 64-bit extensions. The extra cost is no longer a factor.

THE PERSON IM QUOTING JUST COPIED THE PARAGRAPH FROM THIS SITE! You still have not showed me any 64bit advantages, PAE makes 32bit support up to 128gb ram.

This isn't about physical RAM limits... it's about ADDRESS SPACE. J.H.C. you're dense. I can put 16GB in a desktop machine and 32-bit XP may in fact see 16GB of RAM... but that still doesn't get around the address space limit of 4GB.

P4Man, please, come and educate this dolt... you could do it so much better than I.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

because going from 16bit to 32bit was dramatic enough to warrant the change over.

you're talking about going from a hardware limit of 64MB of RAM to 4GB's. At the time of 286's having more than 64MB's of RAM was neccassary because of the need with servers and databases that were growing. They needed the ability to access larger chunks of data.

Also not everyone had a PC. the idea of a PC didn't exist. IBM's were business machines not to play games on. They were strictly used to store databases and information, quick look up and recovery, and of course wordperfect.

DOS was the dominating OS at the time. Windows 3.0 came out at the time of the 386. windows 95 came out at the time of the 486. by the time the pentium came out windows NT 4.0 came out. The first 32bit operating system. MS released windows 9x to support 16bit processors still. keep in mind the 386 was the first processor to support 32bit extensions.

It took how long to go from 16bit to 32bit? windows 9x are 16bit operating systems with 32bit support. Windows NT 4.0 was the first full blown 32bit OS.

It took awhile for the mainstream public to even make use of 32bit.

I find it amusing now that we are finally making use of 32bit for the first time the public wants 64bit. (windows xp is the first 32bit OS for the general public)

Half of you don't even require 64bit processing. The rest of you are probably still running windows 98 with 512mb of ram.

Why did we ever go to 32-bit? :roll:

 

[nesck]

Ur entire post is incorrect and wrong.

Hmmm.

I would think MS knows a little more about their operating systems than you do. How the hell can my post be wrong when I got the information right from the horse's mouth?

You're wrong, you just don't want to admit it.

You can actually have a 3gb process in memory. You are wrong.
I have a 4gb+ file on my computer right now, and my computer is doing just fine with it, how windows moves files is it move pieces and deletes the pieces it moved, when you cancel the action it does the reverse.

Well DUH! Of course you can have a 3GB process... the address space limit is 4GB, not 3GB. How dense can you be?

Moore's Law is untrue anyways.
You can see that the hard drives have hit a dead end, and cpu performance is slowing.

You prove your moronicy with this statement. Moore's Law was never about performance... it was about transistor count. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

The truth is, moving to a 64-bit platform with a 64-bit OS isn't costing you anything extra at this time. Soon 64-bit will be mainstream and 32-bit won't matter. So why the hell are you arguing about it? You blather on and on and on about extra development cost; but how long has AMD64 been around? Two years + now? There is no longer any extra development cost associated with 64-bit because it's here NOW. Every single processor being developed is being developed with 64-bit extensions. The extra cost is no longer a factor.

THE PERSON IM QUOTING JUST COPIED THE PARAGRAPH FROM THIS SITE! You still have not showed me any 64bit advantages, PAE makes 32bit support up to 128gb ram.

This isn't about physical RAM limits... it's about ADDRESS SPACE. J.H.C. you're dense. I can put 16GB in a desktop machine and 32-bit XP may in fact see 16GB of RAM... but that still doesn't get around the address space limit of 4GB.

P4Man, please, come and educate this dolt... you could do it so much better than I.

First of all, the information on that website is wrong, PAE can increase ram detection to up to 128gb (and higher).

I can put 16GB in a desktop machine and 32-bit XP may in fact see 16GB of RAM... but that still doesn't get around the address space limit of 4GB.

WRONG! It only see's a maximum of 4gb ram.

Every single processor being developed is being developed with 64-bit extensions. The extra cost is no longer a factor.

WRONG once again, it makes the processor more complex, increasing costs to add more transistors for the 64bit support, wider registries.

You prove your moronicy with this statement. Moore's Law was never about performance... it was about transistor count. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

My law says that Moore's Law is WRONG. Electrons, protons, and neutrons only come in one size, therefore Moore's Law is incorrect, HE IS WRONG.

Well DUH! Of course you can have a 3GB process... the address space limit is 4GB, not 3GB. How dense can you be?

Once again, the space limit is 4GB due to windows xp limitations, with PAE the limit can be moved so high, no mainstream comp would need so much. (for the next 20 years and beyond)

 

[nesck]

It took awhile for the mainstream public to even make use of 32bit.

I find it amusing now that we are finally making use of 32bit for the first time the public wants 64bit. (windows xp is the first 32bit OS for the general public)

Half of you don't even require 64bit processing. The rest of you are probably still running windows 98 with 512mb of ram.
Why did we ever go to 32-bit? :roll:

I wonder why Microsoft is releasing 32bit windows vista for all there editions, since 64bit is so "vital".

 

[nesck]

Oh, and for f*ck sakes... read what PAE is all about on M$'s webpage:

Click Me.

Even with PAE, 32-bit WinXP is limited to 4GB of ADDRESS SPACE. This is different than the maxiumum amount of RAM a system supports.

Where is P4 Man when you need him?

You just proven to me that the "32bit limit" everyone is talking about is really the windows xp 4gb limit. Your so misinformed that you think that windows xp has a 4gb limit because of 32bit limitations.

 

[Zoron]

No one is claiming it's vital.

The main reason is that there are still a number of 32-bit P4 computers still out there that perform well enough for Vista. Hell, even Athlon XP's would run Vista. But seeing as how those are 32-bit only... you have to release a 32-bit OS if you want to avoid forcing everyone into a mass upgrade in hardware.

My law says that Moore's Law is WRONG.

Your law? When did you become a physicist?

WRONG once again, it makes the processor more complex, increasing costs to add more transistors for the 64bit support, wider registries.

The difference in cost is negligible. Sure, when 64-bit extensions were still a wet dream for a few engineers there were significant R & D costs and the costs to get the processor ready for mainstream use were also significant. However, with the processors having been around for more than 2 years, their mass production offsets any extra cost that is incurred now. Soon, it will be cheaper to make 64-bit processors than 32-bit. What sense would it make to continue with 32-bit at that point?